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  • Africa Finds Common Ground on Climate as Nairobi Declaration Unveiled

    Africa Finds Common Ground on Climate as Nairobi Declaration Unveiled

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    Global community urged to decarbonise their economy. Fossil fuels emit the highest carbon footprint of all fuel types and are considered dirty energy, followed by coal. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
    • Inter Press Service

    NAIROBI, Sep 07 (IPS) – To cool down a burning planet, Africa’s Head of State and Government at the inaugural Africa Climate Summit unveiled the ‘Nairobi Declaration’ as curtains fell on the inaugural Africa Climate Summit held in Nairobi, September 4-6, 2023, under the theme “Driving Green Growth and Climate Finance Solutions for Africa and the World.”

    The joint declaration is a unified approach and political leadership on an African vision that simultaneously pursues climate change and development agenda. As climate change pushes an already fragile continent between a rock and a hard place, Africa’s leaders say immediate action is needed.

    Included in the declaration is an acknowledgement of the 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2023, stating that the world is not on track to keeping within the 1.5°C limit agreed in Paris and that global emissions must be cut by 45 per cent in this decade.

    “The report is particularly important because it highlights the interdependence of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human societies – the value of diverse forms of knowledge, and the close linkages between climate adaptation, mitigation, ecosystem health, human well-being, and sustainable development,” James Njuguna from the Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources tells IPS.

    As such, the Nairobi declaration underscores the IPCC confirmation that “Africa is warming faster than the rest of the world and, if unabated, climate change will continue to have adverse impacts on African economies and societies, and hamper growth and wellbeing.”

    Against this backdrop, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, while speaking at the Nairobi climate summit, stressed that “an injustice burns at the heart of the climate crisis, and its flame is scorching hopes and possibilities here in Africa. This continent accounts for less than 4 per cent of global emissions. Yet it suffers some of the worst effects of rising global temperatures: extreme heat, ferocious floods, and tens of thousands dead from devastating droughts.”

    To push the continent’s climate agenda forward, the declaration identifies several collective actions needed to halt the speed of the ongoing climate crisis and to build climate resilience. African leaders urged the global community to act with speed in reducing emissions and honouring the commitment to provide USD100 billion in annual climate finance, as promised 14 years ago at the Copenhagen conference.

    Other actions include accelerating all efforts to reduce emissions to align with goals set forth in the Paris Agreement, upholding commitments to a fair and accelerated process of phasing down coal, and abolishment all fossil fuel subsidies. And swiftly operationalise the Loss and Damage facility agreed at COP27 and accelerate implementation of the African Union Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy and Action Plan (2022-2032).

    Reducing dependency on fossil fuels and increasing reliance on renewable energy is an important tool in the fight against climate change. Fossil fuels emit the highest carbon footprint of all fuel types and are considered dirty energy, followed by coal. Africa’s abundance of wind and solar energy can simultaneously meet development and climate change adaptation and mitigation goals.

    Mitigation costs for a clean energy transition in Africa are about USD 190 billion per year until 2030. In 2009, during the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15), developed countries committed to a collective goal of mobilizing USD 100 billion per year by 2020 for climate action. As the global community heads to COP28, the pledge is still very much a broken promise.

    Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan incurred an estimated USD 7.4 billion of livestock losses due to climate change and yet rich nations paid less than 5 per cent of the USD53.3 billion East Africa needs to confront the climate crisis.

    To meet the cost of climate adaptation and mitigation efforts, Africa’s head of state and government are seeking: “New debt relief interventions and instruments to pre-empt debt default – with the ability to extend sovereign debt tenor and include a 10-year grace period. New universal global instruments to collect additional revenue.

    “Decisive action on the promotion of inclusive and effective international tax cooperation at the United Nations with the aim to reduce Africa’s loss of USD 27 billion annual corporate tax revenue through profit shifting by at least 50 per cent by 2030 and 75 per cent by 2050.”

    Towards pushing the continent’s climate agenda forward, the Nairobi declaration proposes to establish a new financing architecture that is responsive to Africa’s needs, including debt restructuring and relief, including the development of a new Global Climate Finance Charter through the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and COP processes by 2025.

    African leaders have yet another critical platform to push the climate agenda forward at the Climate Ambition Summit to be held on September 20, 2023, during the high-level week of the UNGA – as an opportunity for ‘First Movers and Doers’.

    ‘First Movers and Doers’ is in reference to people and institutions from Government, business, finance, local authorities, and civil society who are already engaged in climate action and can offer pointers into how climate action can be accelerated. Further, the Nairobi declaration will form the basis of negotiations at the COP28 summit as Africa’s common position in global climate change processes.

    Actioning the declaration is particularly urgent for the injustice of climate change is such that climate-induced disasters have cornered an already fragile continent, and a most vulnerable African population is in the eye of a deadly storm.

    Malawi, Mozambique, and Madagascar were in February and March this year in the crosshairs of the most severe storms in the last 20 years. Deadly floods affected countries such as Chad, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya are experiencing the most severe drought in the last 40 years due to five consecutive rainy seasons. Children in 48 out of 49 African countries assessed by UNICEF are at high or extremely high risk of the impacts of climate change. Children in the Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Guinea, Somalia, and Guinea Bissau are the most at risk.

    To cushion vulnerable communities against the vagaries of climate change, the declaration seeks to hold rich nations accountable for their contribution to the climate status quo and to therefore reach new global carbon taxes, restructure global climate financial infrastructure and decarbonise the global economy in favour of a green economy.

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  • Toothless Global Financial Architecture Fuelling Africas Climate Crisis

    Toothless Global Financial Architecture Fuelling Africas Climate Crisis

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    This goat died of starvation while surrounded by an inedible invasive plant. Lives hang in the balance as Kenya’s dryland is ravaged by a severe prolonged drought. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
    • Inter Press Service

    NAIROBI, Sep 05 (IPS) – Africa needs approximately USD 579.2 billion in adaptation finance over the period 2020 to 2030, and yet the current adaptation flows are five to 10 times below estimated needs.  As thousands convene in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, for the Africa Climate Summit, the first time the African Union has summoned its leaders to solely discuss climate change under the theme ‘Driving Green Growth and Climate Finance Solutions for Africa and the World’, the backdrop is a country on the frontlines of a climate crisis.

    The severe, sharp effects of climate change are piercing the very heart of an economy propped up by rainfed agriculture and tourism – sectors highly susceptible to climate change. After five consecutive failed rainy seasons, more than 6.4 million people in Kenya, among them 602,000 refugees, need humanitarian assistance – representing a 35 per cent increase from 2022.

    It is the highest number of people in need of aid in more than ten years, says Ann Rose Achieng, a Nairobi-based climate activist. She tells IPS that Kenya is hurtling full speed towards a national disaster in food security as “at least 677,900 children and 138,800 pregnant and breastfeeding women in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid regions alone are facing acute malnutrition. Nearly 70 per cent of our wildlife was lost in the last 30 years.”

    Despite Kenya contributing less than 0.1 per cent of the global greenhouse gas emissions per year, the country’s pursuit of a low carbon and resilient green development pathway produced a most ambitious Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to cut greenhouse gasses by 32 per cent by 2030 in line with the Paris Agreement.

    But as is the case across Africa, there are no funds to actualise these lofty ambitions. Africa needs approximately USD 579.2 billion in adaptation finance over the period 2020 to 2030, and yet the current adaptation flows to the continent are five to ten times below estimated needs. Globally, the estimated gap for adaptation in developing countries is expected to rise to USD 340 billion per year by 2030 and up to USD 565 billion by 2050, while the mitigation gap is at USD 850 billion per year by 2030.

    After five consecutive failed rainy seasons, food insecurity is expected to escalate as maize crop has failed to flourish due to erratic weather patterns. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    After five consecutive failed rainy seasons, food insecurity is expected to escalate as maize crop has failed to flourish due to erratic weather patterns. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    As dams and rivers dry up, Kenya will continue to be on the frontlines of a climate crisis unless climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts are escalated. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    As dams and rivers dry up, Kenya will continue to be on the frontlines of a climate crisis unless climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts are escalated. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

    Frederick Kwame Kumah, Vice President of Global Leadership African Wildlife Foundation, tells IPS a big part of the problem is Africa’s burgeoning gross public debt which increased from 36 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 71.4 per cent of GDP between 2010 and 2020 – a drag on its development progress and a disincentive for climate finance flows.

    “There is a concern that climate finance, if and when provided, will be used to first service Africa’s debt burden. The first step to addressing Africa’s Climate Finance must be action towards debt relief for Africa. Freeing up debt servicing arrangements will release resources for continued development and climate finance purposes,” Kumah explains.

    He says there is an urgent need to challenge the existing unfair paradigm for financing by developing countries. It is very expensive for developing countries to borrow for development purposes. Africa must then leverage its natural capital towards seeking innovative financing mechanisms such as green bonds and carbon credits to address its development and climate change challenges.

    Nearly half, 23 out of 47 counties in Kenya, are classified as arid and semi-arid. Livelihoods are at risk as pastoralists are unable to cope with drastic weather changes. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    Nearly half, 23 out of 47 counties in Kenya, are classified as arid and semi-arid. Livelihoods are at risk as pastoralists are unable to cope with drastic weather changes. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    This waterfall is on the verge of drying up. Kenya's economy is heavily dependent on tourism and agriculture. The two sectors are highly susceptible to climate change. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    This waterfall is on the verge of drying up. Kenya’s economy is heavily dependent on tourism and agriculture. The two sectors are highly susceptible to climate change. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

    “Climate finance was, as expected, a key part of COP27. It is a grave concern for Africa that developed countries’ commitment to provide $100 billion annually has yet to be met, even though the need for finance is becoming increasingly obvious. In COP27, we noted that new climate finance pledges were more limited than expected. Countries such as those in Africa are still waiting for previous pledges to be fulfilled,” says Luther Bois Anukur, Regional Director, IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).

    Meanwhile, Anukur tells IPS negotiations on important agenda items, most notably the new finance target for 2025, stalled. In COP27, Parties concentrated on procedural issues – deferring important decisions about the amount, timeframe, sources, and accountability mechanisms that may be relevant to a new finance goal in the future. African countries and many other vulnerable countries are in the fight for our lives, and sadly they are losing.

    Anukur stresses that Africa’s natural resources are depleted, eroded, and biodiversity lost due to extreme effects of climate change leading to loss of lives and ecosystem services and damage to infrastructure at an alarming rate. Yet climate finance pledges have not materialised. The Africa Climate Summit should be the platform for Africa and developing partners to address existing finance gaps with clear programmatic and project approaches.

    Africa must use the Summit to assess and prepare their position for the COP28 in the United Arab Emirates towards strengthening partnerships for the delivery of desired climate finance. Kumah adds that the principle of equal but differentiated responsibilities of nations must be adhered to for climate justice and to enable developing countries, who are least responsible for the effects of climate, to have much-needed resources to cope and adapt to biodiversity loss and climate change.

    “In that respect, the creation of a dedicated funding mechanism to address loss and damage and another for adaptation and mitigation to redress historical and continued inequities in contributions towards biodiversity loss and climate change. We must rethink how private investments can be reshaped and harnessed for the benefit of biodiversity and climate action,” Kumah expounds.

    “Private investments can be scaled through green bonds, carbon markets, sustainable agricultural, forestry and other productive sector supply chains.  Transformative financing architecture is necessary at the domestic and international levels to bring the private and public sectors together to secure the critical backbone of Africa’s natural infrastructure.”

    Climate finance gap. Graphic: Joyce Chimbi & Cecilia Russell
    Climate finance gap. Graphic: Joyce Chimbi & Cecilia Russell

    While developing countries submitted revised and ambitious National Adaptation Plans and NDCs as requested, Anukur says complicated processes to access financing for their climate actions persist. Stressing the need for reforming the international financial architecture, starting with multilateral development banks.

    “The 2023 Summit for New Global Financing Pact held in Paris committed to a coalition of 16 philanthropic organizations to mobilize investment and support UN’s SDG priorities by unlocking new investment for climate action in low- and middle-income countries while reducing poverty and inequality,” Anukur observes.

    Civil society organizations and activists such as Achieng have expressed concerns that such announcements are insufficient considering the scale of the challenges facing planet Earth. The Summit will have failed if the global financial architecture is not overhauled in line with the needs of the African continent, she says.

    Anukur says the Summit must therefore propel Africa to new heights of climate financing to help reduce Africa’s vulnerability to climate change and increase its resilience and adaptive capacity in line with the Global Goal on Adaptation. Ultimately expressing optimism that the opportunity to unlock the potential of climate financing – breaking the shackles of debt and building a climate-resilient and prosperous Africa is, at last, in sight.

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  • Climate Justice Delayed, Is Justice Denied

    Climate Justice Delayed, Is Justice Denied

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    A family shelter on the roof of their small house surrounded by floodwater in Jatrapur Union in Kurigram District, Bangladesh. Credit: Muhammad Amdad Hossain/Climate Visuals
    • by Busani Bafana (bulawayo, zimbabwe)
    • Inter Press Service

    BULAWAYO, ZIMBABWE, Aug 31 (IPS) – Climate justice is not just about survival but also about benefit sharing, reducing inequality and enabling a better society that thrives – Yamide Dagnet, Climate Justice Director at Open Society FoundationsThe failure to tackle the climate change crisis is an injustice to the millions who have lost lives and livelihoods through floods, extreme weather, and wildfires, pointing to the urgency of adaptation and mitigation finance, experts say.

    It is a race against time to slash carbon emissions to keep global temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold, which gives the world some leeway to adapt to extreme events and prevent the planet from plunging further into crisis.

    A global body of scientists assessing the science of climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has warned that “reaching 1.5°C in the near term would cause unavoidable increases in multiple climate hazards and present multiple risks to ecosystems and humans” and advised that limiting limit global warming to close to 1.5°C would substantially reduce projected losses and damages related to climate change in human systems and ecosystems.

    Climate Richard Munang, an environment expert and Deputy Regional Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Africa office says there are interrelated overarching priorities for climate action towards combating climate change.

    “The first is to narrow down the global emissions gap to keep global temperature rise within the safe 1.5°C warming goal, and the second is to achieve a quantum leap in climate justice that addresses the needs of the communities, peoples, and countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis,” Munang told IPS.

    “These are interrelated because the temperature goal of keeping warming to within 1.5°C is the best insurance against an escalation of climate change impacts and their associated costs that lead to the deprivation of many.”

    Climate activists demonstrate during the COP27 in Egypt. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
    Climate activists demonstrate during the COP27 in Egypt. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

    Climate Change an Existential Threat, That’s Why We Need Climate Justice?

    Yamide Dagnet, director for Climate Justice at Open Society Foundations, says climate justice is needed more than ever because of the urgency of the impact of global emissions.

    From heat waves and wildfires across Europe and Canada to droughts in China, the East, and the Horn of Africa to floods in India and the Himalayas, the impact of climate change-induced weather patterns is unrelenting. Through global temperature analysis, NASA found June 2023 to be the hottest on record.

    “At a time when the world is boiling, and there are wide impacts of climate change not only in small developing countries but in developed countries too, which means that there is no justice for any of the vulnerable people anywhere,” Dagnet tells IPS in an interview.

    “Communities in all countries are simply struggling to face the future with dignity. Climate justice is not just about subsistence and coping; it’s ensuring communities can thrive in a world transformed by climate impacts that are undeniable everywhere,” Dagnet says. “We need processes to build trust and ensure that those who make commitments fulfill them …The problem is that some of the commitments made years ago to support that transition have not been met, especially by developed countries when it comes to climate finance.”

    The ‘Missing’ Climate Money 

    As vulnerable countries battle climate change impacts, the provision of finance remains a nagging question ahead of the COP28. According to the IPCC, climate finance for developing countries needs to be increased by up to eight times by 2030.

    “Promises made on international climate finance must be kept,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, noting, “Developed countries must honor their commitments to provide $100 billion a year to developing countries for climate support and fully replenish the Green Climate Fund.”

    Only two of the G7 countries — Canada and Germany — have contributed to the Green Climate Fund.

    Without delay and excuses, Guterres has called on countries to operationalize the loss and damage fund at COP28 this year.

    G20 countries need to take more drastic steps to reduce emissions and to invest in ways to adapt to climate change and face the limits to adaptation by supporting their most vulnerable communities and the most vulnerable countries, says Dagnet.

    “This is why it is important to operationalize the Loss and Damage Fund in COP28 in Dubai. This already took too long — three decades — (to when it was) established at COP27,” she says.

    Joab Okanda, Pan Africa Senior Advocacy Advisor, Christian Aid, told IPS that the least responsible for climate emissions are the most vulnerable. Speaking about Africa, he noted the impact is exacerbated “because we have the least resources to build the resilience we need. We are calling on those responsible for the climate crisis to take responsibility, pay for it, and deliver on the much-needed finance, which is delivering climate justice.

    “There is a need to deal with the global financial architecture which is not delivering for the people of Africa. It is denying Africa the resources that governments require to invest in health care, education, and social protection and has also put Africa in unsustainable debt,” Okanda says.

    Climate Justice Not Just About Survival, But Resilience and Dignity

    Aditi Mukherji, Director of CGIAR’s climate impact platform, agreed.

    “Contributing as little as four percent of global emissions, Africa faces the unjust dilemma of feeding a rising population with limited resources exactly as climate change is slowing down the rate of growth in food production as well as increases in pests and diseases,” she says.

    “Unless GHG emissions decline rapidly, climate impacts will continue to worsen. Here, historical high emitters of the Global North can ratchet up their climate ambition and reduce their emissions while providing financial and technical assistance to put Africa on low emissions pathways that do not compromise future food security.”

    Leleti Maluleke, a researcher for the human security and climate change program at Good Governance Africa, says: “When it comes to climate justice, particularly for Africa, Europe, and the West think that Africa wants aid and emergency relief, but what we are looking for is an investment in a climate-resilient future.”

    “Africa has a plan to adapt to climate change, but it needs to build the infrastructure, and we need financing from the West … We need investment that will allow us to build resilience to climate change.”

    Dagnet believes that “Climate justice is not just about survival but also about benefit sharing, reducing inequality and enabling a better society that thrives … We want to see a Fund that comes to life as soon as possible. With the right capitalization and mechanisms to make it accessible to those who need it the most; not just the vulnerable countries, but local vulnerable communities as well.”

    In Germany, wind and solar energy coexist with energy generated by burning fossil fuels in the Western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Climate experts say it’s crucial to narrow down the global emissions gap to keep global temperature rise within the safe 1.5 degree C warming goal. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS
    In Germany, wind and solar energy coexist with energy generated by burning fossil fuels in the Western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Climate experts say it’s crucial to narrow down the global emissions gap to keep global temperature rise within the safe 1.5 degree C warming goal. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

    Numbing Numbers

    The global impact of climate change is sobering, considering financial, social, and cultural losses across all development sectors.

    According to the World Meteorological Organization, extreme weather anomalies have caused the deaths of two million people and incurred USD 4.3 trillion in economic damages over the past 50 years.

    While the World Health Organization has described climate change as the most significant health threat to humanity, approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress will be witnessed between 2030 and 2050 due to climate change.

    An annual average of 21.5 million people were forcibly displaced each year by weather-related events – such as floods, storms, wildfires, and extreme temperatures – between 2008 and 2016, says the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), warning that more people will be displaced as climate change unleashes more shocks.

    “There is high agreement among scientists that climate change, in combination with other drivers, is projected to increase the displacement of people in the future,” the UNHCR says, noting that climate change has also been a “threat multiplier” in many of today’s conflicts, from Darfur to Somalia to Iraq and Syria.

    In the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, more than 43 million people need humanitarian assistance, 32 million of whom are acutely food insecure due to devastating drought, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

    Phasing Out Fossil Fuels?

    However, the world can still change course and correct the climate crisis. The Global Stocktake taking place for the first time at this year’s COP28 can help accelerate climate action.

    The Paris Agreement’s Global Stocktake (GST) is an assessment of the global response to the climate crisis done every five years, and it evaluates the world’s progress on slashing greenhouse gas emissions, building resilience to climate impacts, and securing finance and support to address the climate crisis.

    “But this cannot be just another global assessment showing how far off track we are. The Stocktake process should also serve as a global accelerator, driving nations to step up their climate action and pursue the transformational change needed to secure a zero-carbon, climate-resilient, and equitable future,” argues the World Resources Institute (WRI) in a primer by Jamal Srouji, Felipe Borja Díaz, and Deirdre Cogan.

    For the world to keep to the 1.5 C, a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels — coal, oil, gas — would be needed, and a similar escalation of investment in green energy such as wind and solar.

    Taking a swipe at oil companies that have continued to profit from fossil fuels with no commitment to phase them out, Guterres said: “Trading the future for 30 pieces of silver is immoral.”

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  • Alleviating Urban Poverty Through Livelihood Generation

    Alleviating Urban Poverty Through Livelihood Generation

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    BRAC International recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bihar Government’s Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society to launch Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana Shahari, the first government-led urban Graduation programme in Asia. Credit: BRAC
    • by Rina Mukherji (pune, india)
    • Inter Press Service

    PUNE, INDIA, Aug 30 (IPS) – In a bid to tackle the complexities of urban poverty, the Government of Bihar’s Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS) has launched Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana Shahari (SJY Urban). The program will include a time-bound series of multifaceted interventions addressing food security, social inclusion, and sustainable economic livelihoods to enable participating households to achieve a better standard of living.

    As part of this program, BRLPS has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with BRAC International, which will serve as a thought partner to the Government of Bihar for the project development and also is building a consortium of partners to support the government in its implementation. Project Concern International (PCI), for example, is taking on management responsibilities and will also host thematic workshops across departments and with civil society experts to support inclusive learning and dialogue.

    Mobile Creches will create a community cadre of childcare providers who will support maternal and child health. They have a 50-year-old history of providing childcare support, maternal and nutritional health, and WASH training to urban women in the slums of Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune. Quicksand will support the learning process to consolidate the design through ethnographic methods, prototyping, and other design elements. These learnings will help inform the project about the fabric of each respective urban community and provide a feedback loop once the rollout starts.

    SJY Urban was inspired by the existing rural programme, Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana (SJY), locally known as JEEVIKA, the largest government-led Graduation programme in the world, which has reached over 150,000 households as of early 2023 and is still expanding. SJY Urban is modelled on the rural programme’s six basic modules: 1) Building up the aspirations and confidence of households; 2) Financial Inclusion; 3) Improvement of Health, Nutrition, and Sanitation; 4) Social Development; 5) Livelihood generation; and 6) Government Convergence.

    While taking inspiration from JEEVIKA, the Urban Programme will be adapted to respond to the unique challenges people in poverty face within the urban context.

    “Urban poverty is complex and inadequately addressed,” said Shweta S Banerjee, Country Lead – India, BRAC International. “SJY Shahari is a unique project in the many challenges it has accepted, including supporting project participants during extreme heat waves. BRAC is excited and committed to serving as a thought partner to the Government of Bihar as we take the time to test, learn, relearn, and deploy the project design.”

    Applying Learnings from the Rural Programme to the Urban

    The 36-month SJY Urban Programme will be launched in five wards in Patna and five wards in Gaya for now and will be scaled up in a year’s time. Given the unique challenges in urban settings, where research and solutions are more limited in comparison to rural settings, the programme will incorporate learnings from the SJY programme.

    “In keeping with the requirements in an urban setting, we intend to provide improved skill sets in carpentry, plumbing, welding, and the like that can help workers access better employment opportunities both within and outside Bihar. For instance, there are around 50,000 to 100,000 Bihar workers in the Tiruppur hosiery industry. We intend to provide them with the necessary skill certification through the National Skill Development Council,” Jeevika CEO Rahul Kumar told IPS.

    Designed with a focus on women’s empowerment, SJY has made a pronounced difference for people living in extreme poverty in Bihar, particularly through inclusive livelihood development and access to financial security through self-help groups (SHGs). The urban programme will also utilise SHGs to improve financial opportunities along with sustainable livelihood options.

    While the livelihood options are different, there is still a great opportunity for skill development for people living in urban poverty. JEEVIKA plans to pursue livelihoods for participants through conventional entrepreneurship, building up specific skills for trades, and partnerships with public utilities. The existing bank sakhi programme, a program that has trained rural women to assist customers in opening accounts and other administrative bank-related services, as part of JEEVIKA, saw 2,500 bank sakhis leverage Rs 10,000 crore in business for various banks.

    According to Rahul Kumar, the bank sakhi programme could be introduced in across Bihar and offer additional financial products such as insurance and mutual funds.

    There are also climate-responsive livelihoods that have been utilised in the rural programme that can work for an urban setting as well, such as waste management, recycling of waste, and the use of e-rickshaws. With climate change contributing to rapid urbanisation across Asia and driving millions more into poverty, affecting those furthest behind first, sustainable, resilient livelihood development will be a critical component of SJY Urban. The programme will work to further enhance resilience among participants by providing them with resources and training to develop food security and social inclusion.

    Creating a Stronger Ecosystem Through Convergence

    Similar to the rural programme, SJY Urban will bring together different existing government schemes and agencies to best serve those living in extreme poverty. The programme will also leverage the existing enterprises within the rural programme and promote them in the urban programme as well, such as market poultry and dairy products.

    There are existing livelihood initiatives that rural participants are driving forward, such as running nurseries across the state, which have provided saplings to the Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Department for planting. These saplings can be used by urban plantations and gardens that are also under the department. Similarly, there are kiosk carts that sell Neera or palm nectar that are processed and made by JEEVIKA participants. There is an opportunity to expand this enterprise to the urban setting as well.

    JEEVIKA will also engage other government agencies to support the design and implementation of the urban programme. Most recently, JEEVIKA and BRAC convened an inaugural workshop in preparation for launching the Urban Poor Graduation Project, in collaboration with the Departments of Urban Development and Housing, Labour Resources, Social Welfare, Women and Child Development Corporation. The workshop brought together government representatives and experts with diverse sectoral expertise to reflect on existing solutions for urban poverty and share key insights that could help inform the design and delivery of the Urban Poor Graduation Project. The workshop also brought together practitioners and leveraged knowledge from Graduation-based programmes outside Bihar and India.

    The shared expertise and convergence in existing government schemes and partnerships will allow the programme to address unique challenges facing the urban environment and enhance coordination, which will ultimately improve overall impact.

    Challenges and Learning Opportunities in an Urban Environment

    This will be one of the first urban Graduation programmes at scale that combine skills development and livelihood support to alleviate urban poverty.

    The unique constraints presented by the urban environment in Bihar, such as limited land availability, the migratory nature of the population in urban poor neighbourhoods, and heatwaves impacting the ability to work, present an opportunity to learn and adapt programming further to test what works.

    “The kind of social cohesion prevalent in rural areas is lacking in urban centres. This makes social mobilisation, on which the programme rests, a difficult task,” Kumar said.

    The first phase in designing the programme, along with the learnings from the first cohort of participants, will offer valuable insights on how to combat the challenges of those living in urban poverty face. Such learnings can then be shared across the Global South to support broader efforts to respond to rapid urbanisation and an increase in urban poverty.

    SJY Urban is poised to move head-on, with its consultants scheduled to hammer out a clear strategy in the coming months. In a year’s time, Kumar says the programme aims to cover all 240 urban local bodies in the state.

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  • International Systems Are Key for Ethiopia’s Security and Development Amidst Renewed War

    International Systems Are Key for Ethiopia’s Security and Development Amidst Renewed War

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    There are still tens of thousands of people in need of health services including surgical interventions from the previous war that left almost 600,000 people dead. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS
    • Opinion by Abdo Husen (addis ababa)
    • Inter Press Service

    ADDIS ABABA, Aug 23 (IPS) – Less than a year since warring parties in Ethiopia signed a peace agreement, the country is on the brink of renewed bloodshed following escalating hostilities between government forces and the Fano militia in the Amhara region.

    Government forces accuse the militant group of plotting a coup; while the militia maintain their marginalization in the post-war reconstruction arrangements including the peace process itself. Additionally, conflict in the Oromia region remains active and unresolved.

    As the poignant African adage goes, when mighty elephants fight, the grass gets trampled. Indeed, the common Ethiopian continues to get caught in the crossfire. They suffer the deleterious effects of a brutal conflict on all sectors of the economy including health. Unless a long-term solution is found, post-war reconstruction efforts in the past 9 months will be negated.

    The Ministry of Health in collaboration with development partners had begun rebuilding health infrastructure and resourcing facilities. These include the rehabilitation of 69 hospitals and 709 health centers. The destruction of these facilities is imminent if hostilities between parties to the conflict continue to escalate.

    Today, there are still tens of thousands of people in need of health services including surgical interventions from the previous war that left almost 600,000 people dead.

    My recent visit to Tigray and Afar regions helped me see firsthand the current reality regarding the dire need for surgical services emanating from conflict. At Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, I met 9-year-old Selam* (not her real name) who is suffering leg bone fractures and an open wound on her knee. She is a blast survivor. Unable to extend her leg due to immense pain, she had to limp her way to the hospital using two canes taller than her height. It took her two years to make it to the hospital due to the long distance and transportation costs. Sadly, she must still wait for hospital admission as the waiting list is very long.

    For Selam and patients like her, the next best time to provide surgical care to restore functionality to their limbs and improve their shot at returning to school is now. There is a potential to leave tens of thousands disabled if they do not access surgical services and associated therapies. Yet, these disabilities are preventable.

    In Mekelle – the regional capital of Tigray, unpublished health and regional administration records show that there are over 20,000 patients waiting for plastic and orthopaedic surgery from injuries sustained in the previous war. Compare this to the supply-side that points to only two plastic and reconstructive surgeons available to cover the demand.

    With their current weekly surgical output, it is going to take 8-10 years to provide much-needed surgery to all their patients. These depressing statistics will only get worse if a lasting resolution to the conflict in other parts of the country is not urgently arrived at.

    Additionally, surgical care for congenital anomalies – including cleft conditions- have long been relegated since the COVID-19 pandemic hit as most elective surgeries were pushed back. Furthermore, the previous conflict in Tigray made them less priority as the health system faced a total collapse and every effort was directed towards emergency trauma care.

    At one Hospital alone – Ayder, there are over 500 registered cleft patients waiting for surgery. The hospital has recently restarted providing cleft correction surgeries. However, the workforce is overstretched, and stockouts of essential supplies hamper their ability to provide the services at scale. With the new outburst of hostilities in Amhara and unresolved conflict in Oromiya, this situation is set to worsen.

    In the previous Tigrayan war that spilled over to other parts of the country, sexual and gender-based violence was highly reported. There are often breakdowns of social and legal protections in conflict situations. Consequently, perpetrators take advantage of vulnerable women and children.

    In fact, United Nations investigators reported that rape was used a weapon of war. This has far-reaching negative health repercussions including mental health disorders. If this new war between the federal government and the Fano militia is not curtailed, the human cost, particularly borne by women and girls, could be even worse than previous conflicts.

    Moreover, conflicts result in the disruption of health systems and delivery, resulting in preventable morbidity and mortality. The lack of well-resourced health facilities also increases the chances of maternal complications such as obstetric fistula that require surgical interventions.

    Additionally, consider the long distances that pregnant women are forced to cover due to the destruction of their nearest health facilities. This exerts negative pressure on their physiological and psychological health. Furthermore, the long transit exposes them to added risks emanating from the breakdown of peace and security.

    It is a depressing situation. It is important that the federal government and regional administrations in areas that are experiencing peace, prioritize access to health services as a matter of urgency. This prioritization is not only towards catering for the healthcare needs of their populations but also in response to the increased demand from conflict-affected areas including surgical care.

    It could be argued that singling out the health sector as a priority for domestic investment is not realistic given the limited resources available to the government for security and the operation of other sectors of the economy.

    However, ensuring health is the foundation of efforts to rebuild a functional society that can work towards comprehensive national development.

    Therefore, the Ethiopian government must leverage international systems and structures to mobilize external investment for healthcare, including quality and safe surgical care. A good starting point would be right at home with the African Union (AU). The AU has the power and influence to marshal financial and diplomatic support for its host country.

    Secondly, the United Nations must step up to its role in this crisis. In September, world leaders convene in New York for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Midpoint Summit. To fulfil these goals by 2030, the UN must act on its clarion call of leaving no one behind by ensuring that seemingly challenged nations like Ethiopia that are deep in a poly-crisis are brought along. This can be done by facilitating neutral party-led talks with the government and the rebels.

    Additionally, the United States as a key governmental partner whose geopolitical interests in Ethiopia are vast and have long been secured must be reciprocal with goodwill in this time of need. However, the onus remains on the government towards preventing a total collapse of the peace and its attendant consequences.

    Ethiopia cannot do it all on its own.

    All parties to the current conflict have a responsibility to respect international humanitarian law and the right to health. Above all it is not long ago that we have seen the power of dialogue to peacefully resolve conflicts in Ethiopia. In the same vein, the peaceful resolution for the renewed conflict has importance going beyond the health care and surgical services. Without this, innocent civilians will continue to suffer preventable injury and deaths.

    Abdo Husen is a Program Coordinator at Operation Smile Ethiopia and a Global Surgery Advocacy Fellow

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  • 20 Years Since the Canal Hotel Bombing: Protecting the People who Protect the World

    20 Years Since the Canal Hotel Bombing: Protecting the People who Protect the World

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    • Opinion by Martin Griffith, Gilles Michaud (united nations)
    • Inter Press Service

    UNITED NATIONS, Aug 21 (IPS) – This World Humanitarian Day on 19 August, we marked 20 years since 22 of our colleagues were killed and more than 100 injured when a suicide bomber detonated a truck full of explosives outside the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, the United Nations headquarters in Iraq. This devastating blow to the UN sent shockwaves across the humanitarian community.

    Along with the suicide car bombing near the UN headquarters in Baghdad just three days later, the attack marked a turning point in how the UN perceived security and threats, and how we approached humanitarian operations in dangerous settings.

    It triggered an urgent review of the UN’s security arrangements, with the Ahtisaari Panel recognizing the need for new UN security approaches that ensured an acceptable balance between operational objectives and staff security in high-risk environments.

    The Panel recommended investment in a new, adequately financed UN security management system with the highest levels of professionalism, expertise, and accountability at its core. As a result, in 2005, the United Nations Department of Safety and Security, or UNDSS, was created, mandated to lead a collective approach to UN security.

    In the 20 years since the attack, the number of people who need humanitarian assistance has grown at a near-exponential rate, from around 50 million in 2003 to 339 million today. In response, humanitarian assistance has never reached as many people as it does today and there have never been as many humanitarian workers deployed globally.

    In many ways, we have become more flexible and dynamic, changing direction more rapidly when either needs or security risks change. We have incrementally improved our policies, support, and guidance to make right and justifiable decisions.

    But the risks to aid workers remain very real. In 2022 alone, 444 aid workers fell victim to violence in 235 separate attacks, with 116 killed, 143 injured and 185 kidnapped. Many of those workers affected were national staff, and the majority were from non-governmental organizations.

    The threats to humanitarian workers, already manifold, are now exacerbated by rampant misinformation and disinformation about their intent and goals, and by unabashed disregard for humanitarian law by many parties to conflict.

    For us to be able to meet our commitment to affected populations and our obligations to our staff, the humanitarian and security communities must remain committed to moving our partnerships, policies and practices beyond the “gates and guards” approach that predominated immediately following the Canal Hotel bombing, towards one that enables humanitarians to get closer to the people we serve.

    We must continuously look for ways to gain access to, and the acceptance of, communities in need. To that end, security approaches must listen to and be attuned to local dynamics and sensitivities.

    These efforts to reach communities in need and to stay and deliver even in the most challenging circumstances must receive greater global support. At all levels, we must advocate, jointly and relentlessly, on behalf of our humanitarian workers and principles, and on behalf of the people we serve.

    This includes educating parties to conflict on their obligations to respect, protect and provide support to relief personnel. It means demanding, clearly and unequivocally, an end to direct or indiscriminate attacks on civilians, non-combatants, and humanitarian workers during conflicts in breach of international humanitarian law.

    And it requires us to challenge the disinformation and misinformation that are increasingly putting them at risk of attack and undermining humanitarian operations.

    Finally, we need to continue high-level diplomacy in support of humanitarian operations and humanitarian access, especially in the context of heavy conflict. Recent experience shows that genuine agreements are possible, even when peace seems a distant possibility.

    Take for example the evacuation of hundreds of civilians from the Azovstal Steel Plant in Mariupol, Ukraine in 2022, when we negotiated a pause in fighting to create a humanitarian corridor for a joint mission with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN.

    Or look at northern Ethiopia where, after months of blockade, the first humanitarian mission reached conflict-affected communities on 31 March 2022. And take the Declaration of Commitment signed by the parties to the conflict in Sudan in which they agreed to protect the civilians of Sudan and recognized their obligations to facilitate humanitarian action.

    Despite repeated breaches of the agreement, it has been pivotal in facilitating the re-establishment of humanitarian operations in many parts of the country.

    As we reflect on the gains of the past 20 years and how we can build on them to address the challenges of the next 20, we remain resolute in our determination to protect the communities we serve, while also protecting our staff.

    This is how we can best honour the memory of those who lost their lives in the Canal Hotel bombing and reaffirm our joint commitment to the noble cause they served.

    Martin Griffiths is Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, and Gilles Michaud, Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security.

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  • Floods, Now Torrential Monsoon Rains Leave Pakistani Women in Crisis

    Floods, Now Torrential Monsoon Rains Leave Pakistani Women in Crisis

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    Women outside an emergency vehicle aimed at helping those affected by flooding. CREDIT: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
    • by Ashfaq Yusufzai (peshawar, pakistan)
    • Inter Press Service

    PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN, Aug 18 (IPS) – Torrential monsoon rains have left the people, especially women, in crisis as they are still grappling to recover from the last year’s floods in Pakistan.

    “We are yet to return to normal lives after devastation caused by severe rains in June 2002 when the new series of rains have started only to further aggravate our problems,” Jannat Bibi, a resident of Kalam in the Swat Valley, told IPS.

    Bibi, 44, a housewife, along with co-villagers, must walk about a kilometre twice a day to collect drinking water for her 10-member family. She says they want the government to provide them with essential needs like food, water, shelter, and medication.

    “A new ongoing wave of monsoon rains has left us high and dry as we are facing a host of ailments due to contaminated water.”

    “Some non-governmental organisations have given us mineral water, utensils and foodstuff last year in June when torrential rain damaged our mud-built houses, but this year, there’s nobody to extend us a helping hand despite severe floods,” she says.

    Most people in the neighbourhood fear that more rain would bring more misery for them as the people have yet to rebuild their homes while roads and health facilities were in shambles.

    Dr Farooq Khan in Swat district says the people desperately require clean drinking water as cases of diarrhoea have been increasing among them.

    “There are more cases of vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue, haemorrhagic fever (DHF) and Leishmaniasis because the people are exposed to mosquitoes-bites, the transmitters of these diseases, due to pools of stagnant water which serves as breeding grounds for mosquitoes,” Khan said.

    Power breakdowns create problems because people cannot get drinking water from wells, and they often store it in uncovered pots, which serve as breeding spots for mosquitoes. “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recorded 18,000 dengue Haemorrhagic fever patients and 18 deaths in 2022,” he said.

    National Disaster Management Authority says at least 86 people, including eight children, have been killed by floods and landslides triggered by monsoon rains that have lashed Pakistan since last month. In June 2022, a flood killed 289 people, it says.

    “Women are the worst victim of climatic changes as they stay home and have to prepare food, wash clothes and look after children, therefore, we need to focus on their welfare,” Dr Javid Khan, a local physician in Malakand district, which is adjacent to Swat, says.

    According to him, about 20 cholera cases have been recorded because people use water contaminated by sewerage pipes during floods.

    “The World Health Organization is establishing two diarrhoea treatment centres to prevent outbreaks of food and water-borne diseases,” he said.

    Munir Ahmed, a local environmentalist, says that women, representing about half of the country’s population, are the worst affected by torrential rains.

    Last year, massive flooding affected nearly two-thirds of the country’s population in Pakistan, as it submerged the low-lying areas inhabited by poor people, he says.

    Rains destroyed 1.7 million homes in Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces which also damaged the water sources and cultivable land, he says.

    “As the people were recovering from the past year’s devastation caused by flood, a new spell has started dampening their hopes of recovery,” Ahmed says.

    More than 1 300 health facilities and 3 000 schools destroyed by 2022’s floods are yet to be built.

    “More than 50 000 pregnant women are finding it hard to undergo mandatory checkups at hospitals because of bad roads and lack of transportation in the country,” according to the Ministry of Health. It says the government is providing alternate sources in the shape of mobile vehicles to ensure their home-based clinical examinations.

    Jabina Bibi, of the remote Chitral district, waited in stayed at home despite being six months into her pregnancy and didn’t receive a medical checkup until a local NGO sent a team to her locality, and she managed to source iron tablets for the treatment of severe malnourishment.

    “The NGO’s doctors proved a blessing for me, and I delivered a normal baby because they carried out an ultrasound which enabled me to know the date of delivery for which I was taken to the hospital located 50 km away,” she said.

    Other women also benefited, but the facilities are scarce, she said.

    Chitral experienced more floods in July this year, which killed at least ten people. Water-Aid, and non-profit organisation, says that the floods have left almost 700 000 pregnant women in the country without getting maternal healthcare, leaving them and their newborns without support, food, security, and basic medical care. The miscarriage rate also skyrocketed during this period.

    Floods causing landslides also resulted in the displacement of people and the loss of millions of livestock.

    In Mansehra district, extensive damage rendered many roads unusable, creating significant transportation difficulties.

    “We need to find work because construction activities have stopped, and it’s extremely to travel to other districts to find jobs,” Mushtaq Ahmed, 24, a resident of Mansehra, said. Pakistan is the second country with the most melting glaciers due to global warming, and Mansehra is one of the affected districts.

    Climate experts believe that women and children are at a much higher risk of losing their lives during a disaster due to their limited access to resources during emergencies. The situation regarding monsoon rains has been under control as of now, but there are forecasts of potential rains in the coming days, which can hammer the last nail in the coffin of those madly hit by rainwaters last year.

    Climate change brings, in its wake, deprivation of people from food security, health, education, and jobs, besides exposing women to violence, displacement, and mental health issues, and the government needs to protect the people from the ill effects of floods, experts say.

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  • Fragility & Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: Two Sides of the Same Coin

    Fragility & Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: Two Sides of the Same Coin

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    A South Sudanese soldier carries a machine gun. Credit: punghi/ Shutterstock
    • Opinion by Samuel Kofi Tetteh Baah, Christoph Lakner (washington dc)
    • Inter Press Service

    WASHINGTON DC, Aug 17 (IPS) – In 1990, about half of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia and two-thirds in East Asia and the Pacific were living in extreme poverty (defined as living on less than what today amounts to around $2.15 per person per day).

    In the three decades that followed, these three regions have followed quite different development paths. In 2019, 35 percent of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa were estimated to be living in extreme poverty, compared to 9 percent in South Asia or 1 percent in East Asia and the Pacific.

    Why has Sub-Saharan Africa been left behind? What explains the sluggish progress in poverty reduction in the region?

    The role of fragility, conflict, and violence in stifling development

    Fragility, conflict, and violence, or, more generally, the lack of peace and security, is one of the key barriers to poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa.

    The World Bank’s list of fragile, conflict-affected, and violent (FCV) countries in 1998, the year with the earliest available data, indicates that 13 of the 24 FCV countries worldwide were in Sub-Saharan Africa (54%, or slightly over a half).

    By 2021, the year with the latest available data, the number of FCV countries in Sub-Saharan Africa had increased by six, and the region still accounted for roughly half of all FCV countries in the world (19 of the 37 FCV countries).

    Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the world had already become more violent over the years, largely driven by increasing counts of FCV countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa.

    These two regions do not only have the most cases of fragility, conflict, and violence, but also the worst trends in extreme poverty.

    Thirty out of the 48 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (almost two-thirds) have been designated as a fragile, conflict-affected, or violent (FCV) country at least once since 1998; in the Middle East and North Africa, it is 7 out of 14 countries (or a half).

    Extreme poverty has decreased at a slow pace in Sub-Saharan Africa and increasing in the Middle East and North Africa (though at lower levels of poverty and subject to greater uncertainty due to a lack of recent data for many countries in the Middle East).

    Besides the severe impact on human life and happiness, conflicts worsen a country’s ability to promote its own development and eradicate poverty. They lead to the loss of lives (human capital) and property (physical capital), thereby stifling investment, growth, and poverty reduction.

    From an economic standpoint, they destroy investor confidence in the economy and lead to wasteful military spending. Conflicts destabilize economic activity, disrupt food value chains, and increase the risk of food insecurity and hunger.

    In times of political or civil unrest, people flee for safety in neighboring countries, human mobility and transportation can be restricted, trust and social capital get destroyed, and people live in fear and panic with little or no hope for a better life.

    All these factors are contrary to the values of freedom, peace, and stability necessary for poverty reduction.

    Poverty and fragility: a vicious circle

    The lack of peace increases the risk of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. All FCV countries in the region in 1998 were low-income countries, whereas the non-FCV countries were split between middle-income and low-income countries.

    The Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, the Central Africa Republic, and Liberia are highly conflict-affected, and are the only countries that have remained FCV countries without interruptions since 1998.

    These four low-income countries had an average extreme poverty rate as high as 73 percent in 1998, while the remaining FCV countries had an average rate of 44 percent compared with 56 percent for all non-FCV low-income countries.

    In 2019, the abovementioned four countries still had a high extreme poverty rate of 58 percent, almost twice the extreme poverty rate in the remaining FCV countries or all non-FCV low-income countries (34 percent and 39 percent, respectively).

    Fragility and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

    Or could it be that the lack of peace in Sub-Saharan Africa is because of poverty (and inequality) in the region? Studies have suggested that grievance increases the risk of conflict, and grievance may occur when individuals or groups of individuals are socially, politically, or culturally deprived.

    Conflicts are more likely when deprivation occurs along the lines of ethnicity, religion, or geographical location. In fact, high ethnic and cultural diversity in Sub-Saharan Africa increases the proclivity for such conflicts.

    A negative relationship between income status and FCV status, supports the idea that poverty drives conflicts. On the other hand, it is important to stress that this is not an automatic mechanism: eight countries have always been low-income countries but were not FCV countries in 2019.

    Also, two of them (Rwanda and Uganda) have never been FCV over the entire period for which data are available. Overall, poverty and fragility can re-inforce each other and create a vicious cycle or a trap.

    There are other factors that might jointly explain the high levels of poverty and fragility in Sub-Saharan Africa, such as low schooling attainment, high inequality in educational outcomes, and the lack of decent jobs. Improving educational outcomes for all (i.e., SDG 4) and increasing job opportunities for all (i.e., SDG 8) would therefore be priority areas in Sub-Saharan Africa that could potentially break the poverty-fragility trap that the region seems to be stuck in.

    A highly educated population is more likely to be tolerant, while education and employment opportunities offer the most likely route out of poverty. However, these policy actions are more long-term in perspective, and require peace and stability to be effective.

    Samuel Kofi Tetteh Baah is Consultant, Poverty and Inequality Unit, Development Economics Research Group, World Bank; Christoph Lakner is Senior Economist, Development Data Group, World Bank.

    The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the UK Government through the Data and Evidence for Tackling Extreme Poverty (DEEP) Research Program.

    Source: World Bank

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  • Reintegration Assistance for Migrants Going Home

    Reintegration Assistance for Migrants Going Home

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    • Opinion by Sophie Meiners (berlin)
    • Inter Press Service

    BERLIN, Aug 16 (IPS) – Reintegration assistance for migrants returning to their countries of origin is becoming increasingly salient. Germany and the EU cooperate closely with countries of origin to support local reintegration.

    Here, assistance goes beyond purely monetary support and can also include additional assistance, such as vocational training and psychological support.

    Still, such efforts encounter criticism and limitations: short-term and individualised support cannot address the root causes of migration and displacement, such as poverty, insecurity and a lack of opportunities, which are among the factors leading to migration in the first place.

    One way to increase the effectiveness of this assistance can be the involvement of initiatives and groups led by returnees themselves. This not only makes it possible to strengthen the credibility and effectiveness of the projects, but also to implement sustainable structures beyond project cycles.

    Diverse and transregional networks

    The so-called ‘returnee networks’ are varied and active in a multitude of regions around the world. For instance, returnees in Nigeria have formed informal social media groups, and in Bangladesh, with the help of a local NGO, formalised networks of returnees emerged in various parts of the country.

    These groups are sometimes made up exclusively of persons who recently returned but can also be led by those who do not, or no longer, struggle with the problems of reintegration.

    Although the emergence of such networks is not a regional phenomenon, they cannot be found in all countries. There are different factors to explain this.

    On the one hand, it can be observed that returnee networks develop in contexts in which a large number of migrants return in the same time period. They then get to know one another in registration processes or reintegration programmes and remain in contact.

    Another factor is an already existing returnee network, which can serve as a role model. Common challenges, such as coping with trauma and stigmatisation, play just as much a role as a lack of reintegration support and family support systems.

    Both these challenges make meeting like-minded peers a more urgent need. Support from external actors and an active civil society also contribute to the emergence of networks.

    Regardless of how they developed and their level of formalisation, these networks can effectively support the reintegration of new returnees. They offer practical help with regard to housing, employment and bureaucratic hurdles.

    They also act as trustworthy intermediaries, informing newcomers about the available support and acting as advocates for returnees’ interests. They can therefore play an important role in shaping reintegration policies and educating their communities about the realities of migrants’ lives during and upon return to their country of origin.

    However, in addition to these indispensable strengths, returnee networks also harbour risks. Competition for resources, such as funds raised through projects with international organisations, and the lack of women participation can limit the representativeness of some networks.

    Moreover, most networks have a very low degree of professionalisation, which is not negative in itself, but can lead to the groups duplicating existing support services and providing these only in a moderate quality.

    Finally, involvement in the networks could result in members further distancing themselves from the rest of society due to their solid and longstanding identification as a ‘returnee’, thus delaying or even preventing their reintegration.

    The notion of returnee networks being an exclusively positive force, which can and should be engaged under all circumstances, is therefore incorrect. Yet, this does not mean that cooperation should be ruled out either.

    Inspite of the risks, the integration of networks is long overdue and is possible in compliance with safeguards. The perspective of returnees should always form a part of reintegration programmes.

    The question is not whether to cooperate with returnee networks, but how to involve them in a meaningful way.

    Sophie Meiners is a Research Fellow in the Migration Programme of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). Previously, she was a Carlo Schmid Fellow at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the Office of the Special Representative on Climate.

    Source: International Politics and Society (IPS)-Journal published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin

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  • Himalayan Monsoon Disaster: Climate Change Colludes with Bad Development

    Himalayan Monsoon Disaster: Climate Change Colludes with Bad Development

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    Monsoon rains flooding Indian cities is more widespread in 2023, raising questions on business-as-usual development policies that continue even as climate conspicuously shifts. CREDIT: Manipadma Jena/IPS
    • by Manipadma Jena (bhubaneswar, india)
    • Inter Press Service

    BHUBANESWAR, INDIA, Aug 15 (IPS) – As torrential rains, cloudbursts, floods, and landslides continue to wreak colossal damage and claim lives in Himachal Pradesh, India’s Himalayan foothill provinces. The question everyone is asking is: why is this happening?

    Himachal Pradesh received 250 millimetres or ten inches of rain in just four days, between 7 to 11 July, which accounted for almost 30 percent of the total monsoon rainfall in a year. This sent mountain rivers spilling over their banks into villages and towns and caused widespread flash flooding, mud, and landslides.

    Over the whole month of July, the State received 71 percent excess of 438 mm actual rainfall against 255.9 mm normal rainfall. It is the second-highest rainfall in 43 years, since 1980, according to the government’s meteorological department.

    Himachal Pradesh has witnessed a six-time increase in major landslides in the past two years, with 117 occurring in 2022 as compared to 16 in 2020, according to data compiled by the State disaster management department.

    This year until now, the state witnessed 79 landslides and 53 flash flood incidents, with the monsoon only halfway, arriving in late June, as per the developing data.

    There have been 223 deaths from these disasters to date. Cloudbursts and losses continue in Himachal Pradesh. Even on August 10, a family of 5 were buried under their collapsed home.

    Is Faulty Ecological Development Worsening the Damage?

    A video that has gone viral worldwide sums up not just the magnitude of destruction but answers some of the reasons why. The video opens with loud panic calls as a thickened river of muck and huge logs swerve downhill monstrously into a narrow village lane flanked by rows of shops in Thunag village in the Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh.

    Locals claimed the trees are Himalayan Cedars chopped down in tens of thousands to widen highways as the government rapidly develops its mid-hills as go-to summer holiday destinations for tourism.

    Trees from forest land cleared for roads, tunnels and hydro-power dams are disposed on hill slopes, in rivers banks and streams along with the earthen muck and debris, said Tikender Singh Panwar, a city administrator who had earlier held office.

    The course of the rivers has narrowed down, and the riverbeds filled up with silt, causing them to break banks much sooner than they normally would when torrential rains come.

    Both tourism and hydro-electricity sectors are the highest earners for the government and are currently being developed on priority.

    The planned development is responsible for this colossal damage, is not so much climate shift, Panwar categorically says. An urban specialist and earlier deputy mayor of Shimla, the State’s summer capital, Panwar, says the focus of Himachal Pradesh, with a fragile Himalayan ecosystem, is on (risky) exploitation of natural resources of water, forest, and nature to pull in more State income.

    Photo 2: Warming in Asia has almost doubled in the last 30 years. Chart indicating the warming trend in Asia in 1991–2022 vs 1961–1990 period. CREDIT: Courtesy WMO State of the Climate in Asia 2022 report
    Warming in Asia has almost doubled in the last 30 years. Chart indicating the warming trend in Asia in 1991–2022 vs 1961–1990 period. CREDIT: Courtesy WMO State of the Climate in Asia 2022 report

    Traditionally, mountain regions for building infrastructure were not cut with vertical slits but terraced to minimise instability in these geologically vulnerable regions. Unfortunately, in a hurry to complete projects, mountains have been cut into vertically, leading to landslides, according to Panwar.

    The government’s Himachal Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority agrees. “Vulnerability of the geologically young and not-so-stable steep slopes in various Himalayan ranges has been increasing at a rapid rate in the recent decade due to inappropriate human activity like deforestation, road cutting, terracing and changes in agriculture crops requiring more intense watering.”

    Land use change is another trigger being viewed as causing a natural disaster to become more damaging. Spreading concrete infrastructures, including “river-view” hotels and homestays, encroach on the riverbanks and basins.

    Cement plants have proliferated to meet the demand for leap-frogging constructions.

    When more rainfall lands in an area than the ground can absorb, or it falls in areas with a lot of impermeable surfaces like concrete and road asphalt that prevent absorption, the water runs downhill, gathering force and everything on its way, turning streams and rivers into raging torrents. It seeks the lowest point in a potential pathway, often reclaiming its own encroached space – the river basin.

    In India’s mostly unplanned urban areas, these often are roads, parking lots, slum settlements, and even multi-storied shops and homes. Changes in land use and land cover contribute to acerbate disaster damage.

    Sand mined illegally from riverbanks to keep pace with the high demand from construction activities could also have played a role in the devastation that rivers caused in Himachal Pradesh, environmental activists said.

    Question Mark on Hydro-Power Projects in Fragile Himalayan Region

    Hydropower is the biggest source of income for Himachal Pradesh, with the national government having a major stake. The State has five major rivers. It sells electricity to other states. Rural electrification, too, remains a major focus. But the environmental cost of the dams in the Himalayan region may be high and already being experienced, said activists.

    The State’s hydroelectricity potential is high, around 27,436 megawatts, which is 25 percent of the national potential. Of this, 10,519 MW is harnessed so far. More projects with lengthy tunnels to channelise river flow are being added quickly. “Sometimes the course of rivers was diverted to build dams for hydro-power projects. This is like playing with nature, says Panwar.

    By 2030, some 1088 hydropower projects are planned to generate 22640 MW of electricity, according to Panwar. India has committed to achieving 500 Gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030.

    This is raising alarm bells for more impending disasters.

    In a Warming Asia: The Role of Climate Change in Increasing Water Disasters

    When the cloudburst in the Thunag area dumped torrential rains, locals said they had no warning. But cloudbursts are characteristically localised, and sudden torrential rainstorm phenomena, categorised when rainfall is 100 millimetres per hour, have been increasing.

    Cloudbursts occur when warm air currents block rain from falling, causing an accumulation of moisture. When the upward air currents become weak, the cloud dumps rain.

    Flash flooding similarly occurs after excessive rainfall pours down in less than six hours. Both are unexpected and often catch victims unprepared.

    The role of climate change is becoming increasingly evident in these types of deluges across continents.

    The simplest part of the explanation for a complex phenomenon is that warmer temperatures lead to increased evaporation. This leads to extra moisture in the atmosphere, which in turn leads to heavy rainfall, especially when two weather systems coincide in a high-altitude, mountainous region. This is what happened in Himachal Pradesh in early July.

    A low-pressure weather system carrying moisture all the way from the Mediterranean Sea to northern India, known as a Western Disturbance, coincided with the normal monsoon system, together resulting in torrential rain. This is not abnormal and, as such, not attributable to changing climate.

    However, studies by scientists around the world show that the climate shift is intensifying the water cycle and will continue to intensify as the planet warms. A number of factors are intensifying the water cycle, but one of the most important is that warming temperatures raise the upper limit on the amount of moisture in the air. That increases the potential for more rain.

    An international climate assessment in 2021 documented an increase in both wet extremes, including more intense rainfall over most regions, and dry extremes. These will continue to increase with future warming.

    In India’s Himalayan region, with its complex terrain and varied weather patterns, deep, intense convective clouds form under normal circumstances. However, studies find instances of deep convection have increased over recent years. Sixty-five percent area in the Himalayan States now shows a trend towards ‘daily extreme rainfall’ categorised when 15 cm of rain falls in 24 hours. Climate change is thought to be one of the main causes of this, according to Madhavan Rajeevan, a senior retired official of India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences. “This can have severe consequences,” he says.

    According to the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT), Asia is the world’s most disaster-impacted region; 83 percent of the 81 weather, climate, and water-related disasters in Asia in 2022 were flood and storm events. More than 50 million people were directly affected.

    WMO State of the Climate in Asia 2022 report released in July said Asia, the largest continent with 30 percent of Earth’s land area, is warming faster than the global average. The warming trend in Asia in 1991–2022 was almost double the warming trend in the 1961–1990 period (see chart), according to the World Meteorological Organisation report.

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  • #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign to Elevate Voices of Young Afghan Girls on Global Stage

    #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign to Elevate Voices of Young Afghan Girls on Global Stage

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    The #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign is a compelling and poignant campaign developed in collaboration with ECW Global Champion, Somaya Faruqi. CREDIT: ECW
    • by Cecilia Russell (nairobi)
    • Inter Press Service

    NAIROBI, Aug 14 (IPS) – Two years ago, the then 19-year-old Somaya Faruqi and the Afghan Robotic Team travelled from Herat City to Kabul, the heart of Afghanistan—the Taliban had taken over Herat city, cutting off electricity and internet. The all-girls team’s great passion for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) had driven them to Kabul to rehearse for a competition.

    “After three days, I woke up, looked outside the window, and saw the Taliban in the streets. I was very shocked and could not believe it. I never imagined that the Taliban could take over Kabul. There were thousands and thousands of people trying to flee the country, and after three days of trying, we flew to Qatar with the help of the Qatari government. I wondered what would become of my sister and classmates who were left behind,” Faruqi tells IPS.

    It did not take long for the de facto authority to unveil their plans. Two years down the line, the Taliban has waged a gender war and women and girls are on the receiving end. The Taliban edict has banned adolescent girls from the classrooms. After year six, they are to stay at home, says Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW)—the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

    Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW)—the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, says the ban on girl’s and women’s education has the effect of forcing them to live once again in the shadows. CREDIT: ECW
    Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW)—the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, says the ban on girl’s and women’s education has the effect of forcing them to live once again in the shadows. CREDIT: ECW

    “Afghan girls are banned from accessing secondary and tertiary education because of their gender, and this is the most ruthless form of discrimination. They cannot understand why they are not allowed to attend school like their brothers. Their pathway to education has been cut, and they are in pain, suffering and (often) struggling with suicidal thoughts. We must stand in solidarity with them, for in the words of Martin Luther King Jr, injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Their distress should shake us to the core,” Sherif tells IPS.

    She says that the situation in Afghanistan is one of the worst in the world. To elevate Afghan girls’ voices on the global stage, ECW has launched the #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign. A compelling, poignant campaign developed in collaboration with Faruqi, who is an ECW Global Champion.

    Faruqi finished her 12th grade in Qatar, from where she applied to college and received a scholarship from the Qatar Fund for Development to pursue engineering studies in the United States. Her astounding progress and brilliance are a testament to the devasting blow being dealt to millions of Afghan girls.

    “The situation in Afghanistan gets worse from one day to the next. Women and girls are prisoners in their own homes, in their own country. They cannot leave their homes without a male guardian- a father, brother or relative. They have been denied the freedom to pursue any interest outside their home, and they sit around with nothing to do. Through this campaign, I want the world to know that there is a country today where girls are denied fundamental human rights, forced out of school and into marriages,” Faruqi explains.

    The campaign is to be launched on August 15, the second anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.  is in Gordon Brown—UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of ECW’s High-Level Steering Group on the eve of the launch, stressed the need for the international community must hear this poignant call from the heart of Afghan girls and young women.

    Faruqi affirms the need to hear from those inside Afghanistan, at the very heart of the ongoing injustice, to hear how their lives have been turned upside down and how a fragile future now hangs in the balance if the global community remains silent.

    Sherif says the situation is particularly horrific because girls are simply not being left behind in the education system due to conflict or climate disaster; an official ban is keeping them out of school. As a firm fist pushes millions of girls out of school, the immediate impact is a rolling back of time to a place where women lived in the shadows. This devastating decree means that 50 percent of the population is not able to access education.

    “This is not reflective of Islam. The foundation of Islam is learning. The first word in the Quran is read. It does not advocate for girls not to go to school. The ban is unacceptable,” she emphasizes.

    The campaign uses moving images by a young Afghan female artist and determined testimonies from Afghan girls. It features a series of equally inspiring, heart-wrenching and determined testimonies from Afghan girls whose lives have been abruptly upended by the ban preventing them to pursue their education and dreams.

    Their powerful words are conveyed together with striking illustrations depicting both the profound despair experienced by these Afghan girls and young women, along with their incredible resilience and strength in the face of this unacceptable ban on their education.

    ECW invites partners and the wider public to stand in solidarity with Afghan girls by posting messages from Afghan girls across social media every day—from 15 August, the date when the de facto Taliban authorities came into power in Afghanistan 2021, until 18 September, which marks the start of the official ban on school for adolescent girls.

    Sherif says the campaign is in line with sustainable development goal 4 and will run through the UN General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit from 18-19 September at the UN General Assembly in New York. The Summit aims to mark the beginning of a new phase of accelerated progress towards the SDGs with high-level political guidance on transformative and accelerated actions leading up to 2030 – progress that cannot be achieved with Afghan girls left behind.

    “ECW, through our in-country partners, has invested in formal and non-formal education in Afghanistan since 2014. More than 70 percent of the Afghan population is in dire humanitarian need. It is a country on the brink of collapse in terms of people’s well-being. We are therefore calling for urgent funding to continue to fund community-based education through our grassroots organizations. We should never stop supporting Afghanistan; people are suffering,” Sherif emphasizes.

    ECW has been supporting education programmes in Afghanistan since 2017. The ECW-supported extended Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) in Afghanistan supports more than 250,000 children and adolescents across some of the most remote and underserved areas of the country. The programme delivers community-based education, organised at the local level with support from local communities, and is critical to keep education going. Girls account for over half of all the children and adolescents reached by the MYRP.

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  • Political Will and Investment Will Score the Goal for Zero Hunger

    Political Will and Investment Will Score the Goal for Zero Hunger

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    IFAD says investing in smallholder farmers is key to tackling food insecurity or severe food and nutritional insecurity. CREDIT: Busani Bafana/IPS
    • by Busani Bafana (bulawayo)
    • Inter Press Service

    BULAWAYO, Aug 14 (IPS) – A world free from hunger is possible, but it demands political will, investment, and effective policies to transform agriculture and rural development, says Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

    More than 800 million people in the world went to bed hungry in 2022, and 3.1 billion others could not afford to eat a healthy diet in 2021, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)’s latest State of Food Insecurity and Nutrition in the World report.

    IFAD described the startling SOFI report as “a wake-up call for the fight against hunger,” noting that massive investment in rural development and small-scale agriculture will win the war on hunger.

    “Every year, the hunger and food insecurity numbers remind us of this dark reality: Not only are we not reaching our targets — we are moving farther away,” Lario told IPS in an interview via email.

    Enough Food but Hunger for Decisive Action

    According to the SOFI, hunger numbers stalled between 2021 and 2022, but there were 122 million more hungry people in 2022 than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Sustainable Development Goal #2 is the zero-hunger goal of the United Nations. It aims to end all forms of hunger and malnutrition by 2030 by ensuring all people — especially children and the more vulnerable — have access to sufficient and nutritious food all year round. But is the zero-hunger goal realistic, given that the number of hungry people globally is rising despite advances in technology to boost food production and productivity?

    Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). CREDIT: IFAD
    Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). CREDIT: IFAD

    “In a world of plenty, where inequalities are increasing, zero hunger is the only objective to have,” Lario said. “Ending hunger is feasible. It is a matter of political will, adequate investments, and policies.”

    Commenting on the SOFI report, Danielle Nierenberg, President of the Food Tank, said world leaders were failing to prioritize the needs of millions of people around the globe in creating better food and nutrition security.

    “If we leave people behind because there is something going on in the world, whether there is conflict in Russia against Ukraine or inflation across the globe … If we do not protect and nourish those who are most in need, we are setting ourselves up for disaster,” Nierenberg told IPS in an interview.

    “Hungry people tend to be angry people for obvious reasons … What we need is better political will and active policymakers to really solve this with the help of communities, nonprofits and research institutions who have been leading the charge against hunger.”

    Reacting to the SOFI report, Oxfam, a global charity focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, said it was unforgivable for governments to watch billions of people going hungry in a world of plenty.

    “Solutions to end world hunger exist, but they require bold and united political action,” said Hanna Saarinen, Oxfam International Food Policy Lead, in a statement, calling on governments to support small-scale food producers and promote especially the rights of women farmers, who are key in the fight against global hunger.

    Lario said in Africa, conflicts, poverty, lack of infrastructure and access to energy, and poor access to education and vocational training, combined with high population growth, were converging to worsen the challenge of food and nutrition insecurity.

    However, this did not mean that hunger cannot be overcome as the African continent had many assets to boost food security, including land, natural resources, and the dynamism of its youth, said Lario.

    Invest in Rural Development and Small-Scale Agriculture

    Danielle Nierenberg, President of the Food Tank. CREDIT: Food Tank
    Danielle Nierenberg, President of the Food Tank. CREDIT: Food Tank

    Asked what needs to be done to win the war against hunger and undernutrition on the back of many countries which put more money into funding war than food security.

    The invasion of Ukraine by Russia as well as the tension in East Asia, have driven increased global military spending by 3.7 percent in real terms in 2022, to a record high of USD 2 240 billion, according to new data on global military spending published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

    “Governments need to understand that hunger and poverty fuel conflicts, migration and ultimately instability,” Lario told IPS, noting that the Ukraine war and the dependency of many countries on food imports has led to the recognition of the importance of food sovereignty and food security for national security.

    “To win the war on hunger, we need to massively scale up our investments in rural development and small-scale agriculture,” said Lario.

    Lario is convinced that investing in agriculture is three times more effective at reducing poverty than investing in any other sector. Agriculture remains the backbone of many African economies.

    Financial support for agriculture has been stagnant at just 4-6 percent of total Overseas Development Aid (ODA) for at least two decades. IFAD notes that agriculture ODA fell to USD 9.9 billion in 2021, far below what is needed.

    Very few African governments have invested 10 percent of their budget in agriculture as per the Malabo Declaration of 2014. Besides, small-scale farmers receive less than 2 percent of global climate finance despite being major food providers, Lario said.

    IFAD estimates that up to USD 400 billion would be needed annually until 2030 to build sustainable, equitable and resilient food systems.

    “We need to tackle the root causes of hunger and rural poverty,” he said, adding that “Inaction will be expensive. Every USD 1 spent on resilience now saves up to USD 10 in emergency aid in the future.”

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  • Empowering Women in Assam: Livestock Farming Brings Economic Relief Post-COVID

    Empowering Women in Assam: Livestock Farming Brings Economic Relief Post-COVID

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    Goat rearing is contributing to economic independence and improved livelihoods of women thanks to a post-COVID-19 empowerment project. CREDIT: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS
    • by Umar Manzoor Shah (milonpur, india)
    • Inter Press Service

    MILONPUR, INDIA, Aug 08 (IPS) – Seema Devi is a 39-year-old woman hailing from India’s northeastern state of Assam. She lives in a village called Milonpur, a small hamlet with no more than 1 000 inhabitants. While most men from the village, including Devi’s husband, move to cities and towns in search of work, women are left behind to take care of the house and kids.

    Devi says that after the COVID-19 lockdown in India in the year 2020, the family income drastically plummeted. As most of the factories were shut for months, the workers, including Devi’s husband, were jobless. Even after the lockdown ended and workers were called back to the factories, the wages witnessed a dip.

    “Earlier my husband would earn no less than Rs 10 000 a month (125 USD), and after the lockdown, it wasn’t more than a mere 6 000 rupees (70 USD). My children and I would suffer for the want of basic needs like medicine and clothing, but at the same time, I was considerate of the situation and helplessness of my husband,” Devi told IPS.

    However, there were few alternatives available at home that could have mitigated Devi’s predicament. With the small area of ancestral land used for cultivation, the change in weather patterns caused her family and several households in the village to reap losses.

    However, in 2021, a non-government organization visited the hamlet to assess the situation in the post-COVID scenario. The villagers told the team about how most of the men in the village go out to cities and towns in search of livelihood and work as labourers in factories and that their wages have come down due to economic distress in the country.

    After hectic deliberations, about ten self-help groups of women were created. They trained in livestock farming and how this venture could be turned into a profitable business.

    The women were initially reluctant because they were unaware of how to make livestock farming profitable. They would ask the members of the charitable organisation questions like, “What if it fails to yield desired results? What if some terrible disease affects the animals, and what if the livestock wouldn’t generate any income for them?”

    Wilson Kandulna, who was the senior member of the team, told IPS that experts were called in to train the women about cattle rearing and how timely vaccinations, proper feed, and care could make livestock farming profitable and mitigate their basic living costs. “At first, we provided ten goat kids to each women’s group and made them aware of the dos and don’ts of this kind of farming. They were quick to learn and grasped easily whatever was taught to them,” Wilson said.

    He added that these women were living in economic distress due to the limited income of their husbands and were desperately anxious about the scarcity of proper education for children and other daily needs.

    Devi says that as soon as she got the goat kids, she acquired basic training in feeding them properly and taking them for vaccinations to the nearby government veterinary hospital.

    “Two years have passed, and now we have hundreds of goats as they reproduce quickly, and we are now able to earn a good income. During the first few months, there were issues like feeding problems, proper shelter during monsoons and summers, and how and when we should take them out for grazing. As time passed and we learned the skills, we have become very trained goat rearers,” Devi said.

    Renuka, another woman in the self-help group, told IPS that for the past year, they have been continuously getting demands for goat milk from the main towns. “People know about the health benefits of goat milk. They know it is organic without any preservatives, and that is the reason we have a very high demand for it. We sell it at a good price, and at times, demand surpasses the supply,” Renuka said.

    For Devi, livestock farming has been no less than a blessing. She says she earns more than five thousand rupees a month (about 60 USD) and has been able to cover daily household expenses all by herself. “I no longer rely on my husband for household expenses. I take care of it all by myself. My husband, too, is relieved, and things are getting back on track,” Devi said, smiling.

    Kalpana, a 32-year-old member of the group, says the goats have increased in number, and last year, several of them were sold in the market at a good price.

    “The profits were shared by the group members. Earlier, women in this village were entirely dependent on their husbands for covering their basic expenses. Now, they are economically self-reliant. They take good care of the house and of themselves,” Kalpana told IPS News.

    Note: Names of some of the women have been changed on their request.

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  • Clock Is Ticking For Food Security In Africa, Says New IITA Head

    Clock Is Ticking For Food Security In Africa, Says New IITA Head

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    DG Simeon Ehui visits IITA Semi-Autotrophic Hydroponic SAH, cassava multiplication section with Kenton Dashiell and Debo Akande facilitated by Mercy Diebru-Ojo, Assitant Seed Specialist (Right). Credit: IITA
    • by Guy Dinmore (st davids, wales)
    • Inter Press Service

    ST DAVIDS, WALES, Aug 02 (IPS) – “My key message is really simple,” says Dr Simeon Ehui, the newly-appointed director general of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, which works with partners across sub-Saharan Africa to tackle hunger, poverty and natural resource degradation.

    “The clock is ticking,” Ehui tells IPS in an interview from Washington DC on his last day at the World Bank, urging Africa’s leaders to recognise the “absolute, paramount” importance of increasing funding for agriculture.

    Dr Ehui, who also becomes regional director of Continental Africa for CGIAR, a global network of food security research organisations, says Africa’s food security is worsening. He lists the challenges: the climate crisis and extreme weather events that are presently causing floods in the west and central Africa and drought in the east; relatively high population growth; migration to urban areas; and specifically, the Ukraine-Russia war that triggered soaring prices of chemical fertilisers and grain.

    As the African Development Bank recently noted, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in fertiliser prices rising two to three times over 2020 levels, creating serious supply gaps across the continent and driving food inflation. In sub-Saharan Africa, households spend up to 40% of their budget on food, compared to 17% in developed economies. Africa, the bank says, is over-reliant on food staples and agricultural inputs, importing over 100 million tonnes of cereals a year.

    Much of that food deficit and accompanying poverty is concentrated in several African states, led by Nigeria (where IITA is based in Ibadan), which is projected to overtake the US as the world’s third most populous country by 2050 with some 400 million people.

    “My vision is thriving agricultural food systems in Africa,” says Dr Ehui, and, specifically for IITA and CGIAR, this means fostering the conditions to sustain centres of research excellence where scientists will be excited to work, with transparency of management and gender equality.

    “We have to be able to respond quickly … We need to accelerate our research to respond to the needs of the people,” he adds.

    While the global climate crisis is having a huge impact on food security, Dr Ehui agrees that political issues cannot be set aside. “We can’t divorce policy issues from the bigger agenda . The two go together,” he says, singling out land tenure, land grabbing, and obstacles to women having access to land.

    IITA will provide analysis and options for policy-makers to improve access to land and boost investments in agriculture.

    Asked whether he is concerned that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation plays an overly dominant role in providing over half of IITA’s funding of “research and delivery” projects, Dr Ehui begins by expressing his appreciation of the foundation’s support, particularly in the development of Aflasafe to combat dangerous aflatoxin in maise, groundnuts and other crops. However, the new director general also says he wants to “diversify sources of funding and scale-up research”.

    He also rejects criticism from some quarters of the “failure” of Africa’s Green Revolution as embraced by Bill Gates, saying India’s one-crop model of the “green revolution” and a lack of care for the environment had not been applicable to Africa and its own complex systems.

    IITA and CGIAR are responding to the needs of smallholder farmers in Africa, Dr Ehui says, and that means agriculture that is sustainable and regenerative.

    “The focus on regenerative agriculture reflects the importance of natural resource management and local eco-systems,” says Dr Ehui, a national of Cote d’Ivoire who worked for 15 years at CGIAR, managing multi-agricultural research development programs in Africa and Asia, and whose most recent post was World Bank Regional Director for Sustainable Development for West and Central Africa.

    Asked if there was a genuine shift towards regenerative and sustainable practices for Africa, Dr Ehui said CGIAR had long been focusing on using local technologies for enhancing food security, for example, reducing reliance on chemical fertilisers for those who could not afford it and using locally available inputs instead. “When I was a young scientist, we were working on these technologies,” he notes.

    The Dakar 2 summit on food security last January recognised how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had exposed Africa’s over-reliance on imports of chemical fertilisers. “We have the resources to make it locally,” says Dr Ehui, who chaired a summit session.

    At the summit, Senegal’s President Macky Sall, then head of the African Union, declared that “Africa must learn to feed itself” and that at least 10 percent of national budgets should be spent on agriculture.

    Dr Ehui says it has been shown that every dollar spent on agricultural research brings a return of 10 dollars and that such investment will go a long way to help improve the socio-economic conditions of the people. Meeting basic needs will also help stem migration across the Mediterranean to Europe, he says.

    Despite the challenges, agriculture is growing in much of sub-Saharan Africa and remains the mainstay of most African economies and a major employer. With 65% of the world’s remaining arable land in Africa and with a youthful and dynamic population, the African Development Bank believes Africa is capable of feeding itself as the world approaches a total population of nine billion people by 2050.

    But have the pleas heard at the Dakar summit been heeded? “There has been a shift,” Dr Ehui replies. Funding for agriculture is still “below optimum”, but “a few countries” have responded, and he feels confident that, with work, numbers will soon increase.

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  • Ukraine Humanitarian Response Plan Only 30 Percent Funded

    Ukraine Humanitarian Response Plan Only 30 Percent Funded

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    Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown. Credit: UN
    • by Abigail Van Neely (united nations)
    • Inter Press Service

    UNITED NATIONS, Aug 01 (IPS) – Civilian infrastructure is under attack in cities across Ukraine, and the need for long-term aid grows. However, the United Nations’ 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan for Ukraine is only 30 percent funded, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, told journalists.

    The response plan for the year calls for USD 3.9 billion to continue frontline deliveries several times a week, prepare Ukraine for winter, and support long-term recovery and rebuilding in the country. Brown said that funding meant to help at least 11 million Ukrainians has been inadequate due to unexpected demands.

    Access to water for drinking and irrigation has become a key issue following the destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka Dam. Top-floor residents have watched their downstairs neighbors evacuate flooded apartments. Several thousand people have been displaced due to water damage. Brown said that while the situation has been managed in the short term, the UN team continues searching for long-term solutions to water contamination.

    Brown highlighted that the need for trauma support is growing at a fast pace. While it is too early to assess the long-term psychological effects of the current war, a 2019 study found a high prevalence of PTSD and depression in Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

    The Black Sea city of Odesa has been attacked by Russia several times in the past weeks. The city is an important hub for the UN and the humanitarian community because it acts as a staging area for frontline responses, Brown explained. She recently traveled there to check on UN staff.

    In Odesa, Brown visited the historical Orthodox cathedral. The Transfiguration Cathedral is in the center of a protected part of the city and within 700 meters of where most UN staff live and work. Brown learned that neighboring civilians had taken shelter in a bunker in the cathedral when an air siren went off, not knowing it would be hit. There was damage throughout the building, with one wing completely destroyed. A team of UNESCO experts has been deployed to further assess the condition of the cathedral. Brown said she was heartened to see community members gather to clean up broken glass.

    “What I saw in Odesa last week with my own eyes is being repeated across many big cities in Ukraine,” Brown said.

    According to Brown, big cities with a UN presence nearby are regularly targeted. Whole neighborhood blocks have been struck, and entire buildings have come down. Attacks on infrastructure like critical ports have hurt civilian workers, Ukrainian farmers, and vulnerable people in the Global South who rely on grain from the region. Access to resources has been a particular concern since Russia’s termination of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

    The UN continues to advocate for access to Russian-occupied territories for the purpose of providing aid. Brown said they have been denied due to “security concerns.”

    “The humanitarian situation hasn’t changed… the only thing that’s going to relieve that situation is if the war stops,” Brown said.

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  • Civil Society Space in Southern Africa Shrinking as Government Repression Rises

    Civil Society Space in Southern Africa Shrinking as Government Repression Rises

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    • by Busani Bafana (bulawayo)
    • Inter Press Service

    BULAWAYO, Jul 31 (IPS) – Freedom of expression is under threat as governments in Southern Africa have enacted laws restricting civil society organizations, says global rights advocacy organisation, CIVICUS, warning that human rights violations are on the increase globally.

    “The state of civil society is unfortunately not improving; civil restrictions continue across the world,” said David Kobe, the advocacy Lead at CIVICUS.

    “More than 2 billion people live in countries that are rated as closed, which is the worst rating any country can have – this means that 28 percent of the world’s population are not able to speak out when there is corruption or human rights violations restrictions or cannot write articles as journalists without facing appraisals,” Kobe told IPS in an interview, noting that the organization’s human rights tool is indicating growing suppression of civil space across the world.

    The CIVICUS Monitor, a tool accessing the state of civic space in more than 190 countries, provides evidence of restrictions on human rights by governments. The CIVICUS Monitor rates the state of civil space ‘open, ‘repressed’, and ‘closed’ according to each country.

    Kobe notes that human rights violations are increasing globally with more restrictions on civil society in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The picture is not different in the Southern Africa region where restrictions on civil space have been continuing, and these have included censorship, violent response to protests and restrictive laws as seen in Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe

    Closing Civil Society Space

    Zimbabwe remains on the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist as attacks on civic space continue ahead of the scheduled 2023 national elections.

    Last November, Zimbabwe approved the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment Bill, 2022, known as the Patriotic Act. The law seeks to create the offence of “wilfully damaging the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe” and will essentially criminalise the lobbying of foreign governments to extend or implement sanctions against Zimbabwe or its officials.

    Furthermore, the Zimbabwe government gazetted the Private Voluntary Organisations Amendment Bill in November 2021, amending the Private Voluntary Organisations Act, which governs non-profit organizations. The main aim of the Bill is to comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations to strengthen the country’s legal framework to combat money laundering, financing terrorism and proliferation.

    Civil society organizations warn that the Bill could hinder their activities and financing with potential adverse impacts on economic development. Besides, NGOs argue that they are a low-risk sector with no precedence of financing terrorism and money laundering.

    Musa Kika, Executive Director of Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, says the PVO will affect the operations of NGOs, including deterring donors from funding PVOs, fearing the money could end up under the grip of the government. Besides, the Bill has a provision giving the Minister of Justice unfettered powers to place under supervision or surveillance, using subjective discretion, those PVOs the Minister deems to be high risk.

    “Continued hostility and harassment on the part of the government towards the work of CSOs in the country will thus only result in a hugely detrimental effect on their efforts in advancing the protection of and respect for the basic human rights and freedoms of ordinary Zimbabwean civilians as espoused under Zimbabwe’s Constitution,” Kika said. He noted that civil society organisations were operating in a tough environment in Zimbabwe where the government does not trust them, especially those working in the fields of governance and human rights.

    “We have a government that does not want to account,” said Kika. “We have had many human rights activists who have been arrested on flimsy charges…Terrorism finance is being used as a cover, but the motive is to close the democratic space because the government and accountability in human rights and governance are sworn enemies.”

    In Zimbabwe, NGOs have, in partnership with the government, supported development, providing a range of services in health, education, social protection, humanitarian assistance, environmental management, emergency response and democracy building.  A research report commissioned by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum in collaboration with the Southern Defenders and Accountability Lab has warned of huge job and financial losses if the Bill is passed into law.

    United Nations experts have urged Zimbabwe’s President Emerson Mnangagwa to reject enacting a bill that would severely restrict civic space and the right to freedom of association in the country.

    However, President Mnangagwa has defended the passage of the PVO Bill, vowing to speedily “sign it into law once it reaches my desk”. In a commentary in his weekly column published by the government-owned Sunday Mail, Mnangagwa said signing the bill into law will usher Zimbabwe into a “new era of genuine philanthropic and advocacy work, unsullied by ulterior political or financial motives.”

    Mnangagwa said the law was meant to defend the country from foreign infiltration.

    Engendering Patriotism but Endangering Democracy

    Zimbabwe has also recently approved another repressive law known as the ‘Patriot Act’.

    “The Patriotic Act is an extremely repressive and unconstitutional piece of legislation that has serious ramifications for citizens’ rights, particularly the rights of freedom of expression in the lead up to the elections,” human rights lawyer, Dough Coltart, tells IPS in an interview.

    “There is a very real need to educate the citizens on what the ramifications of this Act are for people’s lives because the Act has far-reaching consequences for the entire country and will essentially stifle any public dialogue around the challenges we are facing as a country.”

    “The Patriot law is a bad piece of legislation which is an affront to the practice of ethical journalism in Zimbabwe,” Njabulo Ncube, Coordinator of the Zimbabwe National Editors’ Forum (ZINEF), told IPS. “It stinks to the highest skies as it criminalizes the practice of good journalism. It is anti-media freedom and free expression…civil society organisations have also been caught in the mix; they cannot effectively make government account for its actions.”

    Democracy Dimming

    The situation in Zimbabwe is echoed in some countries across Southern Africa, where governments are cracking down on CSOs in the name of protecting national sovereignty and the threats of money laundering and terrorism financing.

    In Angola, the country’s National Assembly, on May 25 2023, passed a draft NGO Statute, which CSOs have criticized for limiting freedom of association by giving the state excessive powers to interfere with civil society activities.

    According to the Movimento de Defensores de Direitos Humanos de Angola (Movement of Human Rights Defenders of Angola, KUTAKESA), the government has targeted civil society with legislation that is meant for terrorists and money launderers, though it has never been proven in any court that a CSO has committed an act of terrorism in Angola.

    On the contrary, the rationale of this legislation constitutes institutional terrorism, the target of which are CSOs, said Godinho Cristóvão, a jurist, human rights defender and executive director of KUTEKA in an interview with the CIVICUS Monitor.

    “The Angolan authorities should have aligned themselves with the democratic rule of law and respected the work of CSOs and HRDs,” Cristóvão is quoted as saying.

    “Instead, there has been an increase in threats, harassment and illegal arrests of human rights defenders who denounce or hold peaceful demonstrations against acts of bad governance and violations of citizens’ rights and freedoms. There have been clear setbacks with regard to the guarantee of fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the constitution, as well as the rights set out in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other human rights treaties Angola has ratified.”

    In Mozambique, a new NGO on Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act, which overregulates CSOs, is seen as the death knell for the civic movement in the country. The Act was approved in October 2022 under the pretext of fighting terrorism. It has further curtailed freedoms of expression, information, press, assembly and public participation.

    Paula Monjane, Executive Director of the Civil Society Learning and Capacity Building Centre (CESC), a Mozambican non-profit civil society organisation, said currently, the legislation was being proposed to silence dissenting voices and people fighting for better governance of public affairs and the protection of human rights in the country.

    The draft Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Act law establishes a legal regime for the creation, organisation and functioning of CSOs, and Monjane highlighted that it contains several norms that violate freedom of association despite this right being safeguarded by the constitution and international human rights treaties.

    “It gives the government absolute and discretionary powers to ‘create’, control the functioning of, suspend and extinguish CSOs,” said Monjane, adding, “If the bill is approved, it will legitimise already existing practices restricting civic space, allowing the persecution of dissenting voices and organisations critical of the government, up to banning them from continuing to operate.”

    Monjane said if the bill is passed into law CSOs in Mozambique will push for it to be declared unconstitutional and will ask the African Union, through the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the United Nations, through the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association to urgently condemn it.

    On actions to foster human rights and human rights defenders, Kobe said civil society organisations must be supported to hold governments accountable for upholding national and international human rights conventions that they have subscribed to.

    The Universal Periodic Review, an assessment of the state of civic and human rights of a country over a four-year period, provides recommendations to governments enabling them to open civic space and remove restrictive laws.

    “Governments need to implement the recommendations of the UPR and not treat them as a formality for them to be seen by the international community as respecting human rights when they are not,” said Kobe, adding that encouraging governments to implement the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development was also a way of getting them to see development alongside human rights.

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  • International Inertia Follows Israeli Assault on Jenin in the West Bank

    International Inertia Follows Israeli Assault on Jenin in the West Bank

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    Shu’fat refugee camp is home to 120,000 Palestinian refugees on the outskirts of East Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. Photo credit: Jawad Al Malhi
    • by Catherine Wilson (sydney)
    • Inter Press Service

    SYDNEY, Jul 28 (IPS) – The likelihood of further confrontations remains high following a major Israeli military assault on an impoverished camp of more than 23,500 Palestinian refugees in Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank earlier this month. The landlocked Palestinian territory, located between Israel to the west and Jordan to the east, has been illegally occupied, according to international law, following the invasion by Israel 56 years ago.

    “The destruction I saw was shocking. Some houses were completely burned down; cars had been crushed against walls …I saw the trauma in the eyes of camp residents who had witnessed the violence. I heard them speak about their exhaustion and fear,” Leni Stenseth, Deputy Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the near East (UNRWA), stated after visiting Jenin on 9 July.

    There have been numerous Israeli incursions into Jenin this year, and authorities claim the air and ground invasion on 3-5 July was to target Palestinian militant groups believed responsible for attacks on Israelis. Twelve Palestinians and one Israeli were killed, 900 homes damaged or destroyed, services decimated, and thousands displaced.

    The military raid followed the death of four Israeli settlers by an armed Palestinian in the region in June. “Over the past hours, our security forces have been operating against terror hotspots in the city of Jenin,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on 3 July. Palestinian resistance groups have since strengthened their rhetoric. Israel intended “to kill any resistance, and they have failed in that 100 percent”, a Jenin Brigades spokesperson told the international media. Both Israelis and Palestinians claim the West Bank as part of their homelands.

    Palestinian armed resistance groups have grown in the region in response to Israel’s harsh military occupation. Most Palestinians in the West Bank are refugees living with chronic poverty, unemployment, human rights abuses, deprivation of civil liberties and statelessness. All of this is especially acute for youth in long-term displacement camps.

    “I am not surprised at what happened in Jenin. After 30 years , there is no plan for them , no development and no political agreement. They are losing the future and losing hope,” Jawad Al Malhi, a Palestinian living in the West Bank, said in an interview with IPS.

    The overcrowded Jenin camp, established in 1953, is home to three generations of Palestinians who were evicted from their home villages during the ‘Nakba’ of 1948. The ‘Nakba’ refers to the widespread dispossession of Palestinians of their traditional lands and villages during the formation of the Israeli state. It has a population density of 56,000 people per square kilometre.

    Shu'fat refugee camp is home to 120,000 Palestinian refugees on the outskirts of East Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. Credit: Jawad Al Malhi
    Shu’fat refugee camp is home to 120,000 Palestinian refugees on the outskirts of East Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. Credit: Jawad Al Malhi

    In June, a United Nations special committee on Palestinian human rights in occupied territories reported that Palestinian fatalities at the hands of Israeli authorities in the West Bank in the first five months of this year had skyrocketed by 124 percent compared to the same period last year.

    The Israel-Palestine conflict, in its 75th year, is one of the world’s longest. But the West Bank, which was governed by Jordan, became a battleground when Israel seized it and annexed East Jerusalem during the Six Day War in 1967. Successive Israeli governments have ignored condemnation of its occupation by the international community.

    In further defiance, Israeli settlers have been encouraged to build permanent homes in the West Bank. And settler attacks on neighbouring Palestinian communities, involving physical assault and desecration of homes and property, have occurred with impunity for years. From 2020-2022, Israeli settler violence against Palestinians rose by 137 percent, reports the UN. The trend is unlikely to reverse following the election last year of a new hardline Israeli Government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has pledged to harden its hold on the West Bank.

    The erosion of Palestinian rights and hope of the West Bank becoming the site of their future state has deepened the loss felt by those living in its many refugee camps. One of these is Shu’fat, a sprawling warren of congested buildings that are being built higher as each generation tries to live within its boundaries on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It was established as a refugee camp in 1965 and is now flanked on one side by the Israeli separation or ‘apartheid’ wall.

    Jawad Al Malhi was born in Shu’fat after his family, who were evicted from their village, moved there in 1966. His home is a few hundred metres from the narrow checkpoint, manned by armed Israeli soldiers, which he and other residents are forced to negotiate daily to go to the shops, the hospital and access public services and schools for their children.

    The challenges of life have only intensified with the rapid growth of Shu’fat’s population. “In the 1980s, there were about 10,000 people living in Shu’fat, but now there are 120,000 people here. So, you no longer see the light; you don’t see the sun because of the higher buildings. There is no space, and it is difficult to walk anywhere. There are no places for cars and no places for people,” Al Malhi described, adding that life in the camp “has definitely got a lot worse over the last decade.”

    The video, 'Gas Station' (2009), created by Jawad Al Malhi, portrays the reality of young Palestinian lives within the confines of Shu'fat camp. Credit: Jawad Al Malhi
    The video, ‘Gas Station’ (2009), created by Jawad Al Malhi, portrays the reality of young Palestinian lives within the confines of Shu’fat camp. Credit: Jawad Al Malhi

    Now in his fifties, Jawad has spent most of his life making art about life in the camp and the human experience of occupation. And he has been a dedicated art teacher to children in the camp. He described a video he made in Shu’fat, called the ‘Gas Station’, which gave an insight into the lives of Palestinian youth today. The video records the lives of young men working in a small gas station on the camp’s margins. As the hours pass and the day turns to night, their interactions around a pre-fabricated cabin and petrol tank unfold in an endless cycle of waiting. Time changes, but crucially nothing else does.

    “Among the younger generation, there is now more distrust and suspicion . Young people have a dream to leave the camp, but they can’t leave. It is very difficult for youths to build healthy social lives and relationships,” Al Malhi said. Unemployment among Palestinian youth is estimated at 30 percent.

    Haneen Kinani of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy in Brussels told IPS that most of the younger generation “have never seen life without siege, raids and a brutal Israeli military regime that dehumanises them.”

    Evidence of growing discontent among younger Palestinians is fuelled by numerous factors, including the failure of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, the absence of any tangible peace process and the ineffectiveness of the Palestinian Authority, responsible for administering Palestinian-held areas of the West Bank, to address Israel’s actions.

    “At present, there are no prospects of a political solution. The Israeli Government has no willingness to engage and has no policy beyond possible formal annexation of parts of the West Bank. At the same time, the Palestinian Authority is too weak to be able to negotiate anything,” John Strawson, a Law Professor at the University of East London, told IPS.

    Some nations, such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, have called for Israel to cease its aggressive settlement building, seen as a spur to violence. But commentators point to the unwavering support Israel receives from the United States as a major factor in its ongoing impunity.

    Nasser Mashni, President of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, said it was time for this to change. “The UN and individual countries should be taking immediate and decisive action, as it has shown is possible with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Israel must be subject to UN and international sanctions until it abides by and meets its obligations under international law,” he told IPS.

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  • The Humanitarian & Strategic Risks of US Cluster Munitions Transfers to Ukraine

    The Humanitarian & Strategic Risks of US Cluster Munitions Transfers to Ukraine

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    • Opinion by Elias Yousif, Rachel Stohl (washington dc)
    • Inter Press Service

    WASHINGTON DC, Jul 28 (IPS) – The Biden administration’s decision to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions, a weapon widely banned for the inherent dangers they pose to non-combatants, is risky.

    In addition to the immediate and long-term humanitarian consequences, the transfer of clusters jeopardizes the domestic and international political consensus around support for Ukraine which will be instrumental in ensuring military assistance can be sustained for the long haul.

    Just a day before triumphantly announcing the final destruction of the remaining U.S. chemical weapons arsenal, the Biden administration revealed it was approving the export of another internationally banned weapon – cluster munitions to Ukraine.

    The decision comes in spite of strong opposition from lawmakers, human rights defenders, and even U.S. allies involved in the military aid effort to Ukraine. The controversy reflects the globally recognized risk cluster munitions – projectiles that break apart and disperse dozens of smaller munitions – pose to civilians.

    Though some have argued the provision of these intentionally condemned munitions may provide some battlefield advantage to Ukraine, they also pose serious humanitarian and strategic dangers that could jeopardize both civilian protection imperatives as well as the long-term sustainability of Ukraine’s international military aid enterprise.

    Cluster munitions are a category of ordinance that breaks apart in mid-air, dispersing smaller sub-munitions over a large area, sometimes as wide as several football fields. Beyond the inherently imprecise nature of these weapons, many of the bomblets they scatter fail to detonate, leaving behind a large blanketing of unexploded ordnance that presents an enduring threat to civilians, especially curious children.

    Accordingly, non-combatants make up the vast majority of those killed by cluster munition duds, with tens of thousands of civilian casualties since the 1960’s, including many that occur years after conflict has subsided.

    More than 100 countries, including most of the United States’ closest allies, have signed on to an international convention banning their use or transfer and U.S. law prohibits the export of cluster munitions with a dud rate of over 1%, lower than even the most generous estimates of the ordnance being sent to Ukraine.

    Additionally, the cluster munitions the United States is sending to Ukraine, known as Dual-Purpose Improved Cluster Munitions (DPICMS), are from old stockpiles with older fuses that have few safety features. DPICM duds are especially dangerous.

    The legal and normative taboo, growing international consensus, and U.S. prohibitions surrounding cluster munitions place the Biden administration’s decision to proceed with their transfer to Kyiv in an especially harsh light.

    Both Kyiv and Washington have argued that these weapons are essential for Ukraine’s efforts to dislodge occupying Russian forces, especially amidst a Ukrainian offensive that has been proceeding more slowly than its backers had hoped.

    Some analysts have argued that these weapons provide a unique battlefield capability for Ukrainian forces, especially in terms of addressing Russia’s extensive networks of defensive trenches.

    However, the U.S. government has explained that a major factor in their decision to provide cluster munitions rests on a broader effort to shore up dwindling Ukrainian and Western stockpiles of munitions, allowing the United States to draw from an alternative source without further depleting its own supplies of conventional artillery.

    In other words, these munitions are meant to extend the time available to Ukraine to conduct its summer offensive by alleviating a supply crunch in shells made more acute by a slow-moving effort dependent on attrition of enemy defenses.

    Despite these military-based rationales, the risks the provision of these weapons pose are both immediate and long-term, with consequences that extend beyond the summer offensive and beyond the war in Ukraine. In the first place, the inherently indiscriminate nature of cluster munitions adds to the civilian protection risks for Ukrainian civilians.

    Indeed, cluster munitions used in Ukraine, overwhelmingly by Russian forces but also by Ukrainian troops, have already resulted in numerous civilian casualties. Moreover, the use of cluster munitions will increase the risks to Ukrainian troops by adding especially sensitive unexploded ordnance to already dangerous terrain they will have to traverse as they press forward with their offensive.

    It is why, in addition to their humanitarian concerns, many veterans, including Retired Lt. General Mark Hartling, have voiced their own reservations about the transfer decision.

    And while it has been suggested that these munitions will be used overwhelmingly in the open countryside and in areas already heavily mined by Russian forces, once these munitions are transferred it will be difficult for the United States to influence how they are employed.

    Should fighting move to more densely populated areas, the temptation to continue to use all available weapons will be strong and could result in scenes reminiscent of Moscow’s widely condemned and ongoing use of cluster munitions in urban centers, especially during the early stages of the war.

    The Biden administration insists it has assurances from Kyiv that these weapons will be used under strict conditions meant to limit civilian harm. But while Ukraine has taken great pains to limit civilian casualties, its fidelity to past commitments around the use of U.S.-origin weapons has beenimperfect, adding to concerns around the efficacy of the risk mitigation measures the Biden team has put in place.

    Secondly, using these cluster munitions will complicate and exacerbate what is already going to be a daunting demining enterprise.

    Compared to their unitary munition counterparts, cluster munitions scatter far more dud weapons, not only adding to the volume of ordnance that will eventually need to be cleared but also to the challenge of finding them.

    Cluster munitions have notoriously high dud rates, with even the most generous assessments placing the figure at between 2-14%. But even those numbers are thought to be undercounts, with significant variation in testing and real-world application, and without any meaningful transparency into how the U.S. government has conducted its assessments.

    The administration says that it is transferring munitions with a dud rate of 2.5% – a figure that is both difficult to verify and in violation of U.S. law. Some analysis suggests that the failure rate of the weapons being transferred to Kyiv is far higher, with the potential to litter the region with hundreds of thousands of additional pieces of unexploded ordnance.

    Additionally, a rapid expenditure of the supposedly lower dud rate munitions in Ukraine could lead the administration to start drawing down from even higher dud rate stocks, raising the risks of civilian harm and long-term humanitarian dilemmas.

    Strategically, the transfer of these controversial weapons systems risks creating fissures in Kyiv’s alliance of international supporters which has been critical to Ukraine’s defense. Consensus among Ukraine’s backers has both enabled a more robust military assistance enterprise and denied from Moscow the opportunity to prey upon political divisions in the West to deter security assistance efforts.

    Accordingly, electing to transfer weapons systems banned by most NATO members offers a compelling point of contention among governments aiding Kyiv’s defense, as well as polarizes even further domestic support for backing Ukraine. This is especially true in Europe, where public support for Ukraine remains sizable but divisive.

    With no end to this conflict in sight, and with most analysts agreeing Ukraine will depend on international support for the long term, the provision of cluster munitions risks eroding the enduring political support necessary to sustain military assistance to Ukraine for the long haul.

    Beyond Ukraine, the transfer of clusters sends a dangerous signal about the United States’ commitment to civilian protection and international norms. Whatever conditions the United States may say it is placing on its package to Ukraine, other governments across the world will feel their justifications for using, stockpiling, or selling cluster munitions are made far stronger.

    Undermining the global taboo around these weapons risks making cluster munitions use more likely, including by governments with far less discerning human rights practices.

    The Biden administration is well justified in providing Kyiv the means to defend itself against Russia’s illegal war of conquest. Moscow’s irredentism has wrought unimaginable damage to the country and people of Ukraine and shattered global norms around sovereignty, security, and civilian protection.

    But beyond creating a lasting, life-threatening hazard for Ukrainian civilians, providing cluster munitions to Ukraine risks eroding the moral authority of the cause, and narrows the reputational gap that has both distinguished Kyiv’s defense from Moscow’s invasion and sustained its lifeline of international military support.

    Arguments in favor of providing cluster munitions are narrow in scope and should not outweigh international law, norms, and the long-term interests of Ukraine’s people and its military aid enterprise.

    Elias Yousif is a Research Analyst with the Stimson Center’s Conventional Defense Program. His research focuses on the global arms trade and arms control, issues related to remote warfare and use of force, and international security cooperation and child soldiers’ prevention.

    Rachel Stohl is a Vice President of Research Programs at the Stimson Center and Director of the Conventional Defense Program. Prior to joining Stimson, Stohl was an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, from 2009-2011. She was a Senior Analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C. from 1998-2009.

    Source: Stimson Center, Washington DC

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  • Pharma Giant’s TB Drug Decision Welcomed, But Not All Developing Countries Benefit

    Pharma Giant’s TB Drug Decision Welcomed, But Not All Developing Countries Benefit

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    Dr Abhijit Bhattacharya, MS, Central Hospital Kalla, Eastern Coalfields Ltd., assesses an x-ray of a TB patient. Credit: ILO
    • by Ed Holt (bratislava)
    • Inter Press Service

    BRATISLAVA, Jul 21 (IPS) – In a surprise move, pharma giant Johnson and Johnson (J&J) has agreed not to enforce some of its patents on a lifesaving TB drug, making generic versions available in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

    Although on the WHO’s list of essential medicines and a cornerstone of much TB treatment, bedaquiline had not been available in many countries in part because of its high cost.

    A deal agreed between J&J and the Stop TB Partnership will allow the latter to procure and supply generic bedaquiline to 44 low- and middle-income countries through its Global Drug Facility (GDF). It is expected the price at which these countries will then be able to buy the drug under the deal will be significantly lower than currently, and some experts have suggested it may also reduce the price of the drug for those countries not covered in the deal.

    But patient advocacy groups say that while it is good news that many countries will now get the drug more cheaply, there remain some serious problems with the new deal as countries with some of the highest TB burdens in the world
    are excluded. They are also unhappy that it does not address the enforcement of secondary patents the company has on altered formulations of the drug, which are in place in scores of LMICs until 2027.

    Critics have called on J&J to declare it will not enforce any secondary patents on bedaquiline in any country with a high burden of TB and withdraw and abandon all pending secondary patent applications for this lifesaving drug.

    “We hope this deal will help drive down the price of this drug for all countries. But it doesn’t go far enough. What would have been best would have been for J&J to abandon and withdraw all the secondary patents it holds or has applied for everywhere,” Lindsay McKenna, TB Project Co-Director at the Treatment Action Group (TAG), told IPS.

    Advocacy organisations have for years been pressing J&J to reduce the price of bedaquiline.

    First approved in 2012, it was the first new TB drug in over 40 years and was hailed as revolutionary in the fight against drug-resistant TB, cutting out the need to use often very toxic, intravenously administered drugs. Its use in patient regimens also produced vastly improved treatment outcomes.

    But its high cost – initially USD900 per course even in low-income countries – meant that it was available to relatively few people in many low- and middle-income countries, which have some of the highest TB burdens in the world.

    Its price has now come down but remains too high in the eyes of many experts.

    According to global health charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF), J&J currently prices the drug at USD1.50/day for an adult treatment (USD272/six months). But with scale-up and unrestricted generic competition, it says the price of bedaquiline could get closer to USD0.50 per day.

    This would make a huge difference to cash-strapped TB programmes in poorer countries.

    “Any penny that can be saved and which can be spent on something else related to TB, such as case identification, is of massive importance, especially in countries with high TB burdens,” Christophe Perrin, TB advocacy pharmacist at MSF, told IPS.

    But even if the deal does bring the price down to that level, some of the countries which would benefit from purchasing the drug at a lower price will not be able to as they have been excluded from it.

    Nine countries in the Eastern European and Central Asian region, which have some of the highest TB burdens in the world, are not covered by the deal because of an exclusive supply agreement J&J has with a Russian pharma firm.

    “This deal is beneficial for those countries which can access it, but why are some countries excluded? Those that are excluded have some of the highest TB burdens in the world. It’s a real worry,” said Perrin.

    The exclusion has infuriated senior health officials in some of the excluded countries. In a rare instance of its kind, the national tuberculosis (TB) programme (NTP) of Belarus sent an open letter to J&J demanding urgent action to improve equitable access to bedaquiline in Belarus, and all other countries with a high burden of TB.

    “It is completely unfair that we will be excluded from this deal,” Dr Alena Skrahina, Deputy National TB Programme Manager, Belarus, told IPS.

    Another high-burden country that will not be able to take advantage is South Africa. The country’s national procurement rules mean that it obtains bedaquiline directly from J&J.

    Doctors and patient activists involved in the country’s fight against TB say South Africa’s inclusion in the deal would have been a huge boon to its efforts against the disease.

    “Any money that can be saved could be used to expand diagnosis, public awareness, and use shorter TB treatment regimens, which is what we are looking to do here. Almost 95% of our patients are receiving bedaquiline, so a reduction in the price could have a massive effect. It would definitely benefit South Africa if it was included in this deal,” Dr Priashni Subrayen, TB technical director at the Johannesburg-based healthcare organisation Aurum Institute, told IPS.

    Brenda Waning, head of the GDF, told IPS the deal was a good one for LMICs, but could also theoretically benefit countries not covered by it. It is widely expected that the competitive tenders in the deal will push the global price of the drug down as well.

    “The deal is special in that usually when a company like J&J gives out licences it does so to a supplier, but this deal allows for multiple competitive buyers. We are expecting the price of bedaquiline to go down, although we won’t know by how much until the tenders happen. But a lower price is not the only benefit for countries. It will also mean more suppliers – the last thing you want to be doing is relying on a single supplier for a drug so there will be greater supply security – and whenever you have a price decrease, that frees up money which can be used for other things ,” she said.

    “We think the access price may come down through these tenders, so these countries could, theoretically, get it at a lower price than previously,” she added.

    But even if that does happen, it will not be enough for critics who say J&J must abandon secondary patents it holds, or has applied for, in any country.

    Unlike primary patents, which protect a completely new chemical entity, secondary patents cover modifications of, medical uses, and dose regimes of the new compound, among others. Critics argue they form part of a practice of “evergreening” which extends companies’ monopolies on existing products and, crucially, makes it difficult for generic manufacturers to enter the market with a generic drug after the original patent has expired

    J&J has secondary patents for bedaquiline in 44 countries which are not due to expire until 2027, but under the new deal with StopTB, those countries will now be able to obtain a generic version of the drug.

    But they remain in place in those states – “if J&J were to suddenly pull out of this deal, these countries would be back to square one,” noted Perrin – and the company continues to actively pursue their implementation elsewhere.

    Phumeza Tisile, a South African TB survivor who lost her hearing because of side effects of treatment with older generation TB drugs, said J&J, and other pharma companies, should immediately withdraw secondary patents and commit to not applying for them anywhere in future.

    “This provides affordable medicine to people who need the drug helps people get generic versions of the relevant medicine at a very low cost,” she told IPS.

    Pharmaceutical firms often argue that secondary patents are necessary to recoup the often very high costs associated with bringing a novel drug to the market and invest in the production of other new medicines.

    J&J did not respond when contacted by IPS, but in a statement made as news of the deal broker last week, the company denied its patents had prevented people from accessing its drug and that the most significant barrier to treatment access for patients was the millions of undiagnosed TB cases every year.

    Tisile, who works for advocacy group TB Proof, dismissed such claims, saying secondary patents may be denying people the drugs which they need to stop them dying.

    “It’s greed,” she said. “Pharma companies make medicines to help people, but it never made sense to me that they make this medication so out of reach to people who actually need the medication the most, for them, it’s only profits. “This then can be very dangerous to millions of people who need the medication to survive. In this case, it should be patients before profits,” she said.

    Others pointed out that the development of many new drugs is often funded by taxpayers – one study found that public investment into bedaquiline’s development was as much as five times that of J&J.

    “It’s not a good faith argument to say that secondary patents are needed for a company to benefit from its investment in a drug. You could flip that round and say that the public needs to benefit from the investment they made into a drug,” said McKenna.

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  • New Machine Learning-Based Model Boosting Africa’s Preparedness and Response to Climate Change

    New Machine Learning-Based Model Boosting Africa’s Preparedness and Response to Climate Change

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    • by Aimable Twahirwa (kigali)
    • Inter Press Service

    KIGALI, Jul 20 (IPS) – Scientists have recently unveiled a first-ever weather forecasting model using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning solutions to help vulnerable African countries build resilience to climate impacts.

    Researchers from the Kigali-based African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) are working on a new AI algorithm that allows various end users of weather predictions to make data-driven decisions.

    According to climate experts, these efforts focus on building an intelligent weather forecasting system that is multi-dimensional and updated in real-time with a long-range and is a technology capable of simulating long-term predictions much more quickly than traditional weather models.

    “Key to these interventions is to improve the accuracy of weather forecasting and help African governments better prepare for and respond to weather emergencies,” Dr Sylla Mouhamadou Bamba told IPS.

    Bamba is the lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report 6 (AR6) for the Working Group 1 contribution: The Physical Science Basis and African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) – Canada Research Chair in Climate Change Science based in Kigali, Rwanda.

    The AI model currently being tested by researchers from the Kigali-based Centre of Excellence focuses on analyzing huge data sets from past weather patterns to predict future events more efficiently and accurately than traditional methods commonly used by national meteorological agencies in Africa.

    The first-ever machine learning model, which researchers are currently testing, focuses on analyzing huge data sets from past weather patterns to predict future events more efficiently and accurately than traditional methods to boost climate resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS
    The first-ever machine learning model, which researchers are currently testing, focuses on analyzing huge data sets from past weather patterns to predict future events more efficiently and accurately than traditional methods to boost climate resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

    Rather than working out what the weather will generally be like in a given region or area to get forecasts, Bamba points out that developing modern statistical models using a machine learning approach to forecast sunlight, temperature, wind speed, and rainfall has the potential to predict climate change with efficient use of learning algorithms, and sensing device.

    Although most national meteorological agencies in Africa have tried to enhance the accuracy of their weather forecasts, scientists say that although current technologies can forecast weather over the next few days, they cannot predict the climate over the next few years.

    “Many African countries are still struggling to take measures in preventing major climate-related disaster risks in an effective manner because of lack of long-term adaptation plans,” Dr Bamba says.

    The latest findings by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) show that as the global climate further warms, the long-term adverse effects and extreme weather events brought about by climate change will pose an increasingly serious threat to Africa’s economic development.

    The limited resilience of African countries against the negative impacts of today’s climate is already resulting in lower growth and development, highlighting the consequences of an adaptation deficit, it said.

    Indicative findings by economic experts show lower GDP growth per capita ranging, on average, from 10 to 13 per cent (with a 50 per cent confidence interval), with the poorest countries in Africa displaying the highest adaptation deficit.

    While projections show that climate change is likely to exacerbate the high vulnerability, the limited adaptive capacity of the majority of African countries, particularly the poorest, will potentially roll back development efforts in the most-affected nations, Dr Andre Kamga, the Director General of the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD). This highlighted the need to build high-resolution models.

    Apart from exploiting processes to achieve early warning for all in the current climate value chain Dr Kamga stresses the pressing need to move to impact-based forecasts to enhance the quality of information given to users and to expect more efficient preparedness and response.

    While Africa has contributed negligibly to the changing climate, with just about two to three percent of global emissions, the continent still stands out disproportionately as the most vulnerable region globally.

    The latest report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)  indicates that most of these vulnerable countries lack the resources to afford goods and services to buffer themselves and recover from the worst of the changing climate effects.

    While AI and machine learning remain key solutions for researchers to overcome these challenges, Prof. Sam Yala, Centre President at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Rwanda, is convinced that these modern weather forecasting models are important to help manage challenging issues related to improving adaptation and resilience in most African countries.

    Frank Rutabingwa, Senior Regional Advisor, UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the Coordinator Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa Programme (WISER), acknowledges that for African countries to prevent and control major climate-related disaster risks effectively, it is important to improve their forecasting and information interpretation capacities.

    Latest estimates by researchers show that the skill of numerical weather prediction over Africa is still low, and there remains a widespread lack of provision of nowcasting across the continent and virtually no use of automated systems or tools.

    Scientists from AIMS are convinced that this situation has significantly affected the ability of national meteorological services to issue warnings and, therefore, potentially prevent the loss of life and significant financial losses in many countries across the continent.

    In Africa, a study by Dr Sylla projected an extension of torrid climate throughout West Africa by the end of the 21st century. However, other African regions, such as North Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa, lack this information.

    “Artificial intelligence and machine learning can play a critical role by filling these data gaps on the reliability of weather forecasts that undermine understanding of the climate on the continent,” he said.

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